


Aria: Stammi Vicino, Non Te Ne Andare

by exile_wrath



Series: on the ice, we call everything "love" [1]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Immortality, M/M, POV Multiple, Slow Burn, Supernatural Elements, Yuri is Yuuri's adopted son, and a very protective son, being immortal is not as great as everyone says it is
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-18
Updated: 2017-05-02
Packaged: 2018-09-09 12:31:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 43,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8890798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/exile_wrath/pseuds/exile_wrath
Summary: The tale of a lonely traveler, Victor Nikiforov, and his encounter with an equally lonely immortal man. Alternatively: the tale of Yuuri Katsuki, who never ages and never dies and has lived frozen in time for centuries, and his attempts to keep his adopted son from killing the new guest.





	1. a voice crying far away

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, it's yet another fic that's titled after Stammi Vicino. 
> 
> This fic was written mostly while I played Stammi Vicino on repeat in the background, and is an AU wholly based on a story I derived from the song. I hope you like it.

_Sento una voce che piange lontano / I hear a voice crying from far away_

_Anche tu sei stato forse abbandonato? / Have you been abandoned as well?_

* * *

 

In a manor by the wayside, off the beaten path, between this city and a small town full of artists, there lives a man. There used to be a family there, people say, but eventually the family moved on in ways either literal or metaphorical, and there is only a man there, now. The son. The last one, and he had not moved on for decades.

“It may be tempting to go down that side-road,” the fishmonger tells him, “if you need a place to stay for the night. But the man that lives there opens the door for none, and the only proof we know that he’s not moved on like the rest of his family are the horses.” His hands tremble the slightest as he finishes putting away the dried fish Victor had bought. “Best to find a good clearing, and stay away from that place.”

Victor smiles easily as he took the bag. “So I’ve heard. What’s so bad about the place, though? And what are these horses you speak of?” This is the first he’d heard of the horses throughout the two dozen iterations of the story told to travellers that seemingly every merchant knew. He’s grown tired of it after the fourth listen, but the new detail served to grab his interest.

The fishmonger’s hands tremble more now. “There’s nothing bad, per se. It’s just...”

“Unnatural is what it is,” his wife cut in. “Any person that looks not a day over twenty for gods know how long must have bargained with demons. He might not have done anything, but him and his animals are enough that no sane person would associate with him.”

“Animals?” Victor prompts.

The wife opens her mouth to speak, only to shriek instead, flying backwards behind her husband. “The dog! That dog! Why is it here!?”

Victor turns around in confusion as the crowd parted, panic audible. A dog bounds up to him, rubbing his cheek against Victor’s leg. “Ah, there you are, Makkachin!” He bends down to scratch his faithful companion’s ear. “Don’t run off like that again!” though he hadn’t been too worried when his dog had run off that morning. Makkachin was always able to find him within a few hours, and didn’t like being apart from Victor other than those occasional jaunts.

It took a few seconds for him to realize that the panic was because of Makkachin. “Is something wrong?” he directs the question to the fishmonger’s wife, the one who had freaked out the most.

“That’s your dog?” she asks. “You are very sure?” At Victor’s nod, and a tug to show Makkachin’s collar, everyone visibly calms down. “It looks like one of the manor dogs.”

“Please, do tell me more.” Victor would have flashed one of his signature smiles to put her at ease, but judging by the way that everyone is still looking at him, it wouldn’t have done much.

The woman shakes her head, still behind her husband. “I am sorry, that — your dog. Please, take your things.”

Victor doesn’t let his disappointment show, but he thanks them anyways for the food and continues on through the market, a careful hand on Makkachin and careful eyes observing the trepidation that people had at the mere presence of his dog. He’s never quite seen such a reaction to Makkachin before.

While everyone and their mothers had warned him off of going to the manor in the woods, Victor feels something that his mentor Yakov had always warned him would get him in deep shit.

Curiousity.

Perhaps after wringing some more information from the locals he’ll pick up his belongings from the inn and head out to see for himself what this unnatural man and his estate was like.

* * *

“You’re the one that’s been asking around about the lonely man?” the waitress demands abruptly, slamming down a tankard of beer in front of Victor as he eats his dinner at the inn. “Aren’t you making a tizzy for a traveller?”

Judging by her hair, this one is Axel. _Fallen Snow_ is a comfortable inn near the north entrance of the town, run by a gentle couple and their three daughters that serve as wait-staff and laundry service and various other innkeeping positions. Victor had been pleased with his first impression of it when he’d checked in last night, and so merely nods in answer to Axel’s question. “Is that beer for me?”

She looks down at him inscrutably for several seconds. “No,” she says, turning away, “It’s for my mom.” Victor’s confusion shone through enough that Axel adds, “Whole town is talking about the crazy traveller with silver hair that’s asking around about the lonely man.”

“Is that the man in the manor?” Victor asks. Most people had called him the “young lord”, or “guy out in the woods”, and on one memorable occasion “freakish animal tamer”. Victor still barely knows anything about the man himself beyond the initial cautionary tale and the fact that Makkachin looked like one of the manor dogs.

To be honest, if anything, the lack of information is only fueling his curiousity. Or stupidity, as Yakov would have said.

“That’s what we call him,” Axel confirms. “Mom’s going to talk to you though.” She disappears into the dinner crowd, and Victor finishes the shepard’s pie he’d been eating. He licks the spoon, wondering what the innkeeper would want to talk to him about. Hopefully she isn’t kicking him out. Earlier when he was doing his provision restocking and town interrogation on the “lonely man” - which he thought was a much better moniker than “mystery manor man” - he’d learned quickly to save his questions for after his purchase was done. Otherwise, they would ask him to leave. One woman, once he’d finished buying and starting asking, even tossed his payment back at him.

He scrapes the last of his shepherd's pie and starts on the blueberry cobbler he’s ordered for dessert, wondering when the innkeeper would show up. It’s been fifteen minutes, give or take. Maybe Axel is playing a prank on him, and the beer is actually for him all along? With that in mind, Victor reaches for the beer-

Only for his hand to get swatted away by the innkeeper as she sits down, snatching up the tankard and taking a long gulp. “That hits the spot! Shame it’s gone flat though. Sorry, Mr. Nikiforov, dinner hour had us quite in a tizzy.” Nishigori Yuuko smiles brightly before kicking back across from him.

She’s quite young, in Victor’s opinion. Thirty-five and already a mother of three and the proprietor of a successful inn. Somehow, her features have a sense of eternal cheer that made people think that she’s the daughter of the owner, rather than the owner herself. He’s witnessed one of those “I want to talk to the owner!” arguments before, and her expression upon telling people that she is the innkeeper and that their complaints have been heard and discarded had been amusing.

But that doesn’t explain why she wants to talk to him. May as well bite the bullet — Victor is fairly sure that he’s on the woman’s good side. “And what on earth have I done to deserve your presence gracing my table, Mrs. Nishigori?” he asks lightly, smiling as usual.

Some would have mistaken his curious tone for sarcasm, but she doesn’t. “Like I tell everyone, call me Yuuko.” She set the beer down. “Anyways, old lady Yana from down the street told me that a guest of ours was causing a fuss in the town. You’ve been here only three days, and you’re not a bad sort, so I figured to hear your side of the story before taking her advice and booting you.”

“Oh.” Victor stills, and briefly wonders if he should secure his belongings just in case. “I wasn’t aware that my questions about the man in the manor would have...” he had seen their reactions though, and pressed in asking anyway. It’s his fault.

Yuuko waves her hand dismissively. “Well, you’re not from here, so of course wouldn’t have known.” And then her face is a few inches from him, brown eyes intent and demeanor so very different from the woman Victor had met when he had checked into the inn three days ago. “The problem is, why are you asking about the lonely man?”

“Why?” Victor echoes in confusion. “I’m curious.”

She stares at him for several long seconds before she picks up her tankard and takes a long gulp of beer. “You’re just curious?”

Victor shrugs and spreads his hands, a gesture meant to be disarming. “Of course. I’ve lived a long time, Yuuko, and I’ve traveled many places. But this is the first time that I hear such a story. There are tales of haunted castles and changelings throughout the land, but most of the time they are simply stories.” He grins. “And then I come here and I hear a story about an immortal man in a manor who seems to have a collection of animals, and is completely harmless.” Reaching down, he gives Makkachin’s head a quick scratch. “And in this town, the reaction to my dear Makkachin has made me want to look into the matter further.”

“So you’ll stop asking about the lonely man if you know?” Yuuko asks over her drink, eying him warily. It isn’t a look suited to her.

He nods, wondering why her nickname for the man was different from everyone else’s. “Of course.” Thankfully, she doesn’t know him well enough to figure that is a bald-faced lie.

She scoffs anyway. “Well, you’re in luck, Nikiforov.” Yuuko hesitates for a moment before tipping her tankard back and finishing off the rest of the contents, slamming it down noisily once it’s empty. “I’m probably the person that knows the most about the lonely man.”

“What?”

“We might have been friends, if things were different.”

* * *

“Why are you so angry again, Yurochka?”

The teenager stiffens at the words before scowling and bending down to pick up a basket one of the dogs had brought back from the woods today. It’s a sturdy basket, and he knows under the gingham cloth is most likely wheat flour and some wrapped meat parcels and various other things. “It’s nothing. Yuuko sent us another basket again.”

His guardian perks up a bit at the words, and Yuri’s scowl dies a bit. “Oh! That’s good — we’re starting to run out of flour, and I was thinking about making some pirozhki for dinner.”

That drops the scowl off Yuri’s face faster than his dear cat could make him smile. “Pirozhki?” he asks, “Can we make katsudon pirozhki?” He follows the man back into their house, to the kitchen, and sets the basket on the counter. Under the darkening evening sky, the wood of the counter shines a soft amber. “Please, Papa?”

All he hears is humming. “We can, if we have enough meat. It’s starting to get cold again, so I was thinking of saving meat to make soup and stew.” Yuri pouts, but it’s not like his guardian can see it with his head taking inventory of the pantry.

“What if...” Yuri winces, because no matter how essential it is, he had never liked the task. “What if I went to town to buy food?”

That got Papa’s attention quickly. “But you don’t like going into town,” the man says, standing up and looking at him with concern.

Yuri looks away. “Katsudon pirozhki would make it worth it.”

Papa stares at him, looking for something in his face. “If you want to, then that would work, Yurohchka.” Yuri nods, and Papa smiles. “It’s getting late, so I’ll get you some money tomorrow. Would you mind unpacking the basket so you can take it with you to give back to Yuuko when you go?”

“Okay, Papa.”

Papa falters, hand coming up to rest on the doorframe. “You’re getting too old to call me that, Yurohchka.”

 _Fuck. Not this._ “I’m only eighteen, papa.” Yuri grinds out, glad that his blond hair is long enough to hide his face from Papa.

Papa smiles at him. His face was still the same as it had been when he’d taken in Yuri and his grandfather ten years ago. Hair as black as raven’s wings, eyes brown like the soil when they plowed the gardens. “You grew up so fast.” A pause. “I’m twenty-three, Yurohchka. I’ve been too young to be your papa for a long time.”

“You’ve been twenty-three for ages, Papa,” Yuri rolls his eyes, trying not to show how much this particular subject sets a tremor in him. “Technically you’re older enough to by my grandfather’s papa.”

They both fall silent at the mention of Yuri’s grandfather. Nikolai Plisetsky had been in his sixties when he took shelter from a blizzard with his eight-year-old grandson; they had taken shelter from a blizzard in a lonely manor and had never left.

Yuri’s grandfather can’t leave anymore, anyway. He died of illness, eight winters back. And since then, as far as Yuri’s concerned, the owner of a lonely estate is his Papa.

Even if the man is cursed, and can’t leave his estate. Cursed, and cannot age. Cursed, but he still managed to take care of Yuri as a parental figure, still manages to find a place in his heart to let strangers into his home for shelter.

As far as Yuri is concerned, he’s never going to leave the estate either, shopping trips to town being the exception. He doesn’t need to leave, no matter how often Papa asks him if he’s made friends in town or not. He has no reason to leave — the manor is his home, has been for ten years — and even if Papa will never get older, may still look the same when it’s Yuri’s turn to follow his grandfather... even still-

Yuri remembers when he was little, of his blood parents calling him a selfish child. Is it selfish, then, to not want to leave his guardian’s side? Because the boy knows, has known for a long time, that before he and his grandfather had stumbled in ten years ago, Papa was a lonely man living in an empty manor. And if he leaves again, his benefactor - the man who has given him a home and raised him and taught him about all sorts of things that make him happy-

If Yuri wanted to leave, Papa would smile and pat his head and say, “Goodbye, Yurohchka, I hope you have a happy life.” Papa would bid him goodbye as if nothing was wrong, even though they’re both keenly aware that once Yuri leaves, whether by choice or by death, Papa will once again be a lonely man cursed to never age and never die and never leave his estate.

Yuri wishes he could convey all this to his Papa, to this stupid old man that would lie to keep him happy (lie that he won’t be lonely once Yuri leaves). But instead he grumbles out a, “You’re never getting rid of me, stupid Papa,” and starts unpacking Yuuko’s regular gift-basket.

His hands aren’t shaking as he takes out the food, he swears.

* * *

“I met him when I was little.” Yuuko wears a look of fondness on her face. “I got curious one day about the animals that come into town every week and take food from the merchant stalls and leave coins in their place. I followed one, even though we’re taught not to.”

Axel comes by and switches her mother’s empty tankard with a full one of beer. At Victor’s pleading stare, she fetches him one too.

“What sort of animals are there? I know one looks like Makkachin.”

Yuuko contemplates for a moment. “He has a lot of animals. A stable full of horses, and a kennel of dogs. They roam his estate freely, though. A few cats wander around but they don’t go on errands like the rest.” Before he can ask her to elaborate, she says, “The reason why so many people are freaked out by the animals is because they’re intelligent. Very much so.”

“Intelligent?” Victor echoes.

“He never leaves his estate.” Yuuko bites her lip. “So he sends his animals out every week to get things from town. The dogs carry coin purses and the horses carry saddlebags, and they go through the market taking items and leaving payment. It... really is quite uncanny.”

It sounds _amazing_. “I can see why you wanted to follow them.” He tries not to think too hard about the logistics of it, though. Somehow animals are able to pick out merchandise, and pay for them?

She laughs at his words, and whatever memory they had woken. “Yeah. I ended up following them all the way to the estate, because I realized halfway that I had no idea how to get home. He found me crying, and gave me water, then put me on one of his horses to go back to town.”

Victor tries not to let his disappointment show. “That’s it?”

Yuuko’s lip curls. “That’s all I’m going to tell you.” She starts chugging at her beer again as Victor did his best to bore holes in her with his stare. “Oh fine, if you’re going to look at me like that. I’ll answer one last question, and then I have to return to work.”

He winces. Only one question? He’ll have to make it count. “Why do you call him the lonely man, unlike the rest?”

The woman stops drinking.

Silence stretches between them for what feels like an hour but what Victor logically knew was less than a minute. “Of all things...” Yuuko mutters. She meets Victor’s gaze, something harsh flinting in her brown eyes. “I’ve talked to him a lot. More than everyone else, at least. And everyone is just afraid of his unnatural circumstances, but I...” something wistful catches on her breath, “I know he’s not something we should be scared of. Some call him lord, some call him a mystery, but I say it like it is.”

“He’s lonely.”

She stands up before he could ask her what she meant earlier, about her and the lonely man possibly being friends, but something in her expression stops him. Victor settles with rousing Makkachin to go back to their room.

Victor wishes that he hadn’t promised to stop asking about the lonely man in exchange for that conversation. The innkeeper clearly thought that his curiousity would be assuaged with her answers, but now Victor just has more questions. Well, he had initially made the promise with full intent to break it, but knowing that some people had wanted Yuuko to kick him from her establishment, he figures it would be best not to.

The wistful look, and the wariness with which she had treated the subject, are what actually has him sealing his tongue.

For all that their stories had meant to dissuade Victor from going to the manor, they’ve given him the directions to get there. A dusty path off the main road between this town and the city. Or, maybe he can do as Yuuko did, and follow the intelligent animals.

Later, in his bed and snuggled under warm covers, he rolls on his side to poke Makkachin’s cheek. The poodle doesn’t stir, deep in his sleep. “You’ll let me know if you meet another brown poodle, won’t you Makkachin?”

Victor closes his eyes to sleep, a last thought lingering from his previous musings about the lonely man. _Have you been abandoned too?_

* * *

“Be safe, Yurohchka!” Papa waves him off as Yuri swings onto Stella’s back. The grey mare whickered once he was settled in, and dips her head towards Yuuri before they set off, the sky a dim grey with morning clouds obscuring the sun. They’ll clear by noon, burning away by the heat, so neither of them worry about Yuri getting caught in the rain. He wears a leopardskin cloak on top of a long white shirt and loose trousers tucked in boots with hints of tiger-pattern in the leather. A bag is slung off his shoulder and is secured to his waist with an additional belt. The day promises to be mild, and Yuri is confident he’ll be back before dusk, so no need to dress for a nighttime chill.

As Stella trots out of the estate, Yuri is aware of the rest of the manor waking with activity. Last night, he had helped Papa loop coin-purses around their dog’s necks, and before he mounted Stella they had put saddlebags on each of the horses. Shortly, the animals will leave, to go to various towns to buy food, as Papa could not. Normally, Yuri is content to leave the matter of getting supplies to the animals, and doesn’t question how they had been trained to do so, but unfortunately if he ever wanted something other than the usual foods the animals bought (Yuri admits to having a sweet tooth) he has to go out himself to get it.

Well, sometimes he’d be able to use one of the dogs to send Yuuko a note and some money, and she’d drop a basket by, but Yuri doesn’t like relying on her more than necessary. She’s nice, yes, and treats Papa like Papa deserved to be treated, but... Yuri had long decided that anyone other than Papa isn’t deserving of his entire trust.

... Even if the woman does send him little cakes on his birthdays.

Okay, well, she isn’t bad at all, and her daughters, while nosy, don’t pester him too much usually. Her husband also gets their skates sharpened by the blacksmith for them. So, if anything, Yuri will grudgingly admit that the Nishigori family is okay.

Yuuko sends them warnings about superstitious fucks that would try to hunt down Papa — fanatic priests and witch-hunters — and Yuri always makes sure that none of them ever get near the estate. The innkeeper herself usually does a good job of getting those types dead drunk and getting them carted over to the next city or the like. Together, they keep away anyone that would harm Yuuri.

He asked her, once, why she helped so much.

“Yuuri deserves at least this much.” And the matter has been closed between them since then.

Yuri doesn’t know many people other than Yuuko and her family. Never got close to them, either — there’s no reason to. And it’s better that he doesn’t, honestly. Right now, most people that recognize him just think he’s a frequent traveller that passes by, and it’s easy for him to buy things or run errands for Papa that the animals can’t do. He’ll... lose that, if they knew. Not that Yuri is ashamed of his relation to the immortal man that they are all wary of, but he and everyone else implicitly knew that it would be for the best if no one unnecessary knew the truth.

When travellers stay at the estate, Yuri usually avoids them while Papa plays host and tries not to appear too hungry for more human contact. But Yuri always keeps a close eye on everyone that passes through, because he’s experienced way too many near-robberies already.

In his opinion, Papa should just shut the estate from travellers, but they both know that the man is too kind (and too lonely) to do such a thing.

Stella comes to a stop, and Yuri loosens his grip on her mane. They’re still within the woods, but judging from the sounds, they’re quite close to the village. He dismounts and pats her speckled hide in thanks for the ride. At some point, Vic, one of the dogs, had caught up to them, and Yuri watches as the mare and the poodle trot into town together.

The teen sticks to the woods, travelling around the town and trying to be seen as little as possible until he sees Yuuko’s inn. Thank god it’s on the outskirts. He pulls his leopardskin a little higher, and walks towards the back door.

He raps five times on the wood and leaves the basket there. He’ll check to make sure that they’d gotten it once he’s on his way back — and sometimes Yuuko or one of her daughters will have something warm for him to take home to eat with Papa. Not that he likes the gesture, necessarily. Really.

“It’s the little leopard!” one of the guards greets him in passing. Yuri grunts in reply, not making eye contact. The guard just shrugs, used to his behavior.

People take notice of him whenever he came by — a mix of him going to town every few months and the fact that his leopardskin is very, very memorable. Old lady Yana with her crooked nose and straight-cut wisping hair waves him by to give him some fresh fruits tarts that he eats as he walked towards the market. Some he puts carefully in his bag to save for Papa.

Everything goes as usual — Yuri speaks as little as possible, smiles nicely at the elderly people with soft hearts to get freebies, and points at purchases and silently hands over payment. The less he speaks, the easier it is to escape from possibly being held up by conversation. He doesn’t like being away from the manor for too long.

It is in this air of normalcy that Yuri’s instincts shriek, and he whirls around, honing in on a stranger walking through the market with a brown poodle dogging his legs. He’s quite tall, and wears a feathered cap, and there’s a traveller’s pack on his back and what looks like a violin case in one hand.

Yuri grits his teeth, and forces himself to pay _attention_ , shaking off the urge to pull his leopardskin on. Something about the man makes him feel wary. Silver hair and eyes of ice that carry nothing but good humour as he looks through the market. As he gets closer, Yuri goes back to looking at the cheeses he’d been looking at before, but raises his hackles as he senses his presence come nearer and nearer.

“Are you okay, little leopard?” The woman running the cheese stall looks at him with worry.

Yuri jabs a finger at the stranger. “Who’s that guy, baba Mirna?”  She follows where he had been staring at, and her lips twist into a frown.

“Ah, him.” She busies herself with packing away the cheese he’d bought. “Just a traveller. A weird one, though. He’s been asking about the young lord.” Mirna must have seen Yuri’s quickly-hidden anger, because she adds. “Harmless, I’m sure. Not like any of those witch-hunting types, though they did a fat lot of good against the animals.”

 _She is ignorant and knows nothing she is ignorant and knows nothing,_ chants in Yuri’s head as he resists the urge to snap at her. “What about his dog? Is that a manor dog?” It looks like Vic, but Yuri knows that Vic should be with Stella getting fruit right now.

“I hope not,” the woman says. “He claims that it’s his dog. Bad luck, I say, that he travels with a dog like one from the manor.”

“Thank you for the cheese,” Yuri ends the conversation as quickly as possibly, stuffing the cheese in his bag and hurrying off towards the meat vendor. One of the reasons why he doesn’t like shopping is conversations like that — people casually talking about Papa as if Papa is a bad thing. Yuuko had taught him to repeat the mantra so that he wouldn’t end up causing a fuss in the middle of town, but still, sometimes it was hard.

Yuri swallows, and tosses a look over his shoulder to track the stranger. He’s interacting with people that he comes by, but the townspeople tend to be short with him, or give him a wide berth. It doesn’t affect him at all, though, and Yuri gets a sinking feeling in his stomach.

He ducks and head and hurries to finish his errands and then run to Yuuko’s to ask her what she knows. Something about the stranger makes him feel uneasy, and coupled with the fact that he’d been asking about Papa means that Yuri needs to start making plans.

* * *

A leopardskin cloak is something that Victor had never thought he’d see in this part of the world, on the edge of the Northern Blies Ocean. Leopards, and people that wore their skins, were more common in the Safir Plains, but here was a boy sitting at the counter of the inn’s dining area with a leopardskin around his shoulders. It fits him in a way that Victor knows that the cloak belongs to him, isn’t something stolen. The boy looks too healthy to be the sort to steal, anyways.

He’d seen the boy earlier, in the market, because he’d felt a sudden rush of killing intent and had looked to find the boy as his source. There’s something fae-like about him — delicate cheekbones and slender stature and golden hair — but the emotions that he projects are far too human for Victor to be worried about having accidentally pissed off a fae.

“Who’s that at the counter?” Victor asks a man sitting at the table next to him.

The man takes a single glance up and goes back to his porridge. “That’s the little leopard. Doesn’t have a name, as far as I know.”

Victor stares at him, willing him to give him more information, but the man ignores his intent gaze and keeps eating. So Victor is left to huff and watch as Yuuko welcomes the boy with a hug (that the boy bristles at) and the have a quick conversation before the boy ducks around the counter and heads to the back with Yuuko.

How curious.

“Who was that?” he asks Yuuko later, after the dinner rush died down again and he’d noted that fact that the boy hadn’t come out. From the kitchen. She looks at him, confused. “The boy with the leopardskin.”

Yuuko would make a good actress, Victor thinks, as the only thing that gives away her unease is her pulling a lock of hair behind her ear. Other than that, she continues picking up cups and wiping down tables. “He’s a traveller that comes in every now and then to run errands for his father.” She says.

It’s not the whole truth. He shoulders are slightly hunched, like she’s closed in on herself. Victor has the mind to not ask further. Last night, she’d been willing to indulge his curiousity, but- not tonight. “I see.”

The boy with the leopardskin takes a backseat in his mind as he goes back to his room, mind bubbling with excitement as he packs to leave tomorrow in the morning.

Tomorrow, Victor will try to find the manor, to see whether the rumours are true.

He desperately wishes they are.

* * *

“What’s wrong, Yurohchka?”

Yuri jumps, looking around to see Papa standing in the doorway, a lamp in his hand. He shoves his boots back under his bed, and tries to not look guilty. “Nothing, Papa.”

Papa sighs, and comes closer, sitting next to Yuri on the bed. Yuri leans on his shoulder, and is keenly aware of how awkwardly he has to angle his neck to fit in the crook of Papa’s collar now. It used to be easier, when he was younger. “You’ve been looking upset ever since you got back this afternoon. What’s wrong, Yurohchka.”

He stays silent, trying to figure out the best way to phrase his worries without worrying Papa too much. “I...” he clenches his fists, “Papa, how did you deal with all the bad travellers that wanted to hurt you?”

“... I won’t ask what brought this on.” Yuri relaxes, relieved. “And as for the bad ones...”

“I like to think that they’re not all bad. I mean, the ones that come to exorcise me are usually just misguided, and the robbers are just really down on their luck, the ones that want the estate are... foolish?”

“But they wanted to hurt you!” Yuri cries.

“Well, they failed every time. And besides,” Papa sighs, “It’s easier to spend an eternity thinking the best of the world rather than the worst of it, Yurohchka.”

They sit there in silence, fingers carding comfortingly through Yuri’s hair, the lamplight throwing Papa’s features into looking vulnerable in a way that made Yuri want to ask him the questions he’d never asked before, like what Papa’s blood family was like, and how, exactly, Papa came to know the details of his curse.

All that Yuri knew in regards to the first question was that the Katsuki family had been a warm one, Papa having learned his mother’s recipes during long happy summer days in the kitchen, his father a just and friendly lord, his sister rambunctious yet willing to obey their parents. There was a picture of them in the study that had been moved from the main hall long before Yuri had arrived, and they were all friendly and round-cheeked and full of kindness.

“I guess you’re right,” Yuri said. He squeezed his Papa in a quick hug. “I think you’re one of the best parts of the world, though, Papa.”

“Thank you, Yurohchka. Sleep well.”

* * *

 

As he closes the his son’s bedroom door, he stretches, lantern brushing the wall. Judging by Yuri’s antsy state, he’d caught wind of a traveller intending to visit the estate. Which wasn’t unusual, and would make for a nice change of pace, especially as the days grew shorter and colder.

“I guess I’ll have to break out the wineglasses,” Katsuki Yuuri muses, starting down the stairs. Preparations had to be made to greet the guest tomorrow.

He wonders what kind of traveller it was that made Yuri so nervous, and shrugs the concern aside. It’s not like the traveller would stay for long, anyways.

(Deep inside his heart, something grey and _lonely_ claws up with a wish that whoever it is would stay longer than three days.)


	2. Come now, let's empty this glass of wine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Victor meets the lonely man for the first time, over a glass of fine wine, under a bright afternoon sun that leaves him breathless.
> 
> Or he might be breathless because while lonely is an apt descriptor, no one had said anything about how attractive Yuuri is. 
> 
> In other words, he might not just be curious about the man because of immortality anymore. Oops.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Episode 12 killed me and I ascended into heaven but I returned to post a new chapter. 
> 
> Thank you so much for the comments and the kudos!! I don't reply to comments that often, unfortunately, but I appreciate and constantly look at all of them in order to fuel myself to keep writing.

_Orsù finisca presto questo calice di vino / Come now, let’s empty this glass of wine soon_

_Inizio a prepararmi / I’ll start getting ready_

_Adesso fa’ silenzio / Now be silent._

* * *

 

“Have a good day, Mr. Nishigori.” Victor calls as he checks out of the inn. Yuuko hadn’t been there to say farewell to, which was somewhat a relief. It wouldn’t be good if she figured out that he was heading to the lonely man’s estate. Call it a premonition he has.

“Safe travels,” the man says. He doesn’t look up, but he does wave.

Victor makes his way out of Metzrin town, Makkachin padding along at his side. The guards nod politely as he exits from the north gate (where the inn was closest to) and he makes sure to be out of sight as he circles around to the east instead, where the path to the manor lays.

The woods are nothing special; alpine trees frosted over with the beginnings of winter. Cardinals and wrens were the background music of the forest, with their chirps and frequent wing-flutters. Makkachin occasionally gives chase to some that fly in front of them, but doesn’t stray too far. It’s a mild day, considering winter is starting to creep in on the region. Occasionally branches break from the fast movements of deer.

He walks for what must be two hours, but feels shorter because the road has plenty of other travelers going between Metzrin and the art’s community called Eveng. Most of them are people clearly intending on taking part of the annual Winter Festival he’s heard so much about. They carry instruments, or travel with horses carrying art supplies and covered paintings. There are merchants going both ways, with their large carts and piles of merchandise. Occasionally there are families travelling together, whether on mule or horseback or on foot. Children talking about what they want to see at the Winter Festival, or demanding to hurry to Metzrin to get an instrument repaired.

Observing everyone makes time go by quickly. Some people nod politely as they pass by him, but most ignore him, since he’s a stranger and everyone has places to be.

After the third hour of walking, Victor steps off the main road to lean against a tree and chew some pastries he had packed. He wishes that he had been able to ask exactly how far along the road the path to the mysterious manor would show up, but hindsight is twenty-twenty. He doesn’t suppose that he’d be able to get directions from other travelers either, since it seems like the region’s common sense to avoid the place.

Victor has two choices: chance a conversation for directions, or continue walking and rely on his intuition.

He mulls over the choices as he stands up and slings his pack back on, and tries to look over the thoroughfare to try to find someone that looked helpful. He’s about to approach a pair of young men gesturing wildly in conversation before Makkachin perks up and runs off into the woods. “Makkachin!” he cries, following after his dog. He seems to be running out of excitement rather than fear of anything that had been close to them, but Victor’s worry doesn’t abate because Makkachin barely ever runs off whenever they’re on the road together.

Makkachin plows through bushes and around trees with energy that belongs to a poodle at least ten years younger, not a stately fifteen-year-old dog like him. “Makkachin!” Victor cries out, dodging low tree branches and wincing from the tree roots that he stubs his toes on.

His dog disappears into the bushes again, and Victor’s heart races when he hears barking. He braces himself for Makkachin possibly running into a bear or a wolf before rushing through the bushes, only to find-

 _Two_ Makkachins running around a clearing. Victor rubs his eyes. “Am I hallucinating?” he asks no one in particular. He’s not, as Makkachin is running circles around a very fine horse, chasing another brown poodle of smaller size but equal enthusiasm.

He takes a second to catch his breath and process the scene. The horse is quite fine, the mane and the shine to its coat indicating that it was well-cared for. Spots that vaguely resembled stars covered its hindquarters, and there were saddlebags draped over it. Victor did a double-take. _What kind of horse has saddlebags and no saddles?_ The poodle that is running around with Makkachin looks similarly cared for, though its paws are muddy and there are are leaves stuck its fur.

While the dogs play, Victor approaches the horse, lifting a hand to examine the saddlebags. They’re all of very good make, sturdy and sewn to last, but before he can open the flap of one of them, the horse kicks at him.

He only barely dodges, and the creatures turns to look at him in an almost cross manner. It makes an annoyed-sounding whinny, and the other poodle’s ears perk up. The dog separates from Makkachin and darts forward to nip at Victor’s heels.

He backs away, trying to look as nonthreatening as possible, alarmed by the behavior of the animals. The dog harries him a good couple feet away before the horse neighs, and sets off, the dog quickly scampering behind. Makkachin whines at the loss of his new friend.

Victor stares at the pair of animals as they trot away, astonishment and excitement filling him with energy. “Good job, Makkachin!” he exclaims, picking up his poodle and spinning around, giving Makkachin several grateful head-pats. “What luck!”

He hurries to follow the animals, a smile spreading across his face. Somehow, it seems that Makkachin had found animals from the manor, and now he didn’t have to worry about asking directions! He just had to follow them to wherever they came from; judging by the sag of the bags on the horse, they were returning to their home rather than leaving.

Victor makes a mental note to feed Makkachin one of the more expensive dog treats once they reach their destination.

For what feels like an hour, they follow the animals from a respectable distance, Victor not wanting them to perceive him as a threat. They seem to be fully aware of his presence, though, but somehow seem to peg him as not a threat. The horse had only lashed out when he had made a move for what it was carrying, so they probably based their judgement on either his proximity or his actions. Possibly both. He contemplates what sort of training they must have went through to make such intelligent decisions, but soon gives up on that train of thought for dealing with brambles that wrap around the trees in this part of the woods.

It suddenly occurs to him that the animals might be leading him to nowhere, but Makkachin’s attitude is still good — no reactions to possible threats — so he forges on.

The horse and the dog are only a couple meters ahead of him when they walk around a tree and Victor loses sight of them. He panics, sprinting blindly after them, only to nearly trip on a root as he is suddenly out of the forest and on a dirt path.

He groans into the ground before propping himself up, Makkachin nosing him in worry. He pats his dog to reassure him, and scrambles to his feet. He freezes at the sight in front of him.

The dirt road is quite narrow, and leads past a brick, bramble-covered wall Victor hadn’t seen in the noon shadows. It winds past the walls, and he can see the animals going along sedately, towards what has to be the manor he’s been searching for.

It’s with no small amount of awe that Victor walks past the wall, looking around to see if anyone would yell at him for intruding, and to take in the sights. The manor itself is in front of him, rising three stories high and spanning at least three times the size of Yuuko’s establishment. It’s definitely a building befitting nobility, white stone carved into high arches that line the stairs to the entrance and bricks atop a red marble foundation. It’s not too grandiose, and the stones show signs of age that make the building feel humbler than it really is. Plain windows are on both wings of the building, and as Victor approaches, he catches his reflection in them, but nothing inside. Some kind of glass that makes it easy to look out, and hard to look in, then.

Victor stands at the bottom of the stairs and looks around. Off to the right, he can make out a stable. He raises his eyebrows as the horse he had followed lies down, and its companion poodle bit the straps of the saddlebags and seems to work it free of fastenings before darting off towards the side of the manor. He can feel his eyebrows climbing as it repeats the process until the horse is free from the bags, and tears his gaze away.

This is _definitely_ the manor.

Something makes him hesitate before ascending the stairs, though, and he veers off to the left instead. Makkachin runs ahead of him, around the corner of the manor, and when Victor rounds the corner he gazes up and cannot help but stare.

The sun hangs high, light pouring atop a white gazebo. It’s simple, completely marble, a dome on top of eight columns. At the center is a table from the same material, and two cushioned chairs. A man sits in one of the chairs, a bottle of wine and two wine-glasses on the table. Makkachin gives a happy yip and rushes up to the stranger. Even at this distance, Victor can see the man smile as he bends down to pat Makkachin.

He’s illuminated by the sun, and impossibly bright even in the dark clothes that he wears. Victor walks closer, drinking in every detail. A black dress shirt and black pants, simple but refined. It makes his fair skin stand out, and it’s easy to follow his movements as he looks up and meets Victor’s gaze. He pours the wine out into the glasses, and raises one towards Victor.

“Come, empty this glass of wine with me,” he beckons.

Who is Victor to refuse?

He strides to the pavilion, barely noticing the three steps that raise it from the ground. Sets his belongings down and takes off his hat before accepting the glass from the man, their fingertips brushing ever so slightly.

They toast silently, by some unseen script, and Victor has no qualms about accepting a drink from this stranger, tipping his glass back without hesitation, eyes tracking how the man’s throat moves as he drinks, the shine of the sun on his slicked-back black hair.

They set their glasses down at the same time; Victor’s is empty and his host’s is only halfway. “Do sit,” the man says.

Victor complies. “Were you waiting for me?” he cannot help but ask, leaning back in the cushion.

The lonely man raises an eyebrow, taking another long draw of his wine before he answers. “Not really,” he says, “I was waiting for a traveler. Any traveler that would come visit my estate today.”

“I am a traveler.”

“Then I suppose I was waiting for you.” A chuckle, and he tips his now-empty glass towards Victor questioningly. “Would you like more wine?”

Suddenly, Victor feels parched. “Of course,” he demurs, leaning forward with an elbow on the table, watching how the winter sun throws the man into resembling an artistic relief. “What shall I call you?” Victor asks as he raises his glass to his lips again. “I am Victor.”

“Just Victor?” he asks with amusement tinting his voice. “You may call me anything, Victor.”

“Your name, then,” Victor says.

For a moment, there’s _something_ in the way that the man’s long eyelashes flutter, brown pupils dilating. “My name is Yuuri,” he says after a pause. It sounds unfamiliar on his tongue. Either he has not said his own name for a long time, or it’s not his real name.

“Just Yuuri?” Victor can’t help but return the previous jibe. He holds his glass out, as if for a toast. “I am Victor Nikiforov, a traveler. At your service.”

Yuuri smiles, and clinks their glasses together. “I am Yuuri Katsuki, then. Lord of this estate.” They drink together, and this time Victor makes sure to savor the full-bodied flavor of the wine. It’s clearly of good vintage. He prefers vodka, though, like those from his country tend to.

“Immortal lord, I hear,” Victor says as he puts his glass down.

To his credit, Yuuri doesn’t react at all. “I am. Have you come here to poke at the immortal, or for a temporary stay, Victor?” He sets his own glass down, and adjusts his sleeve cuffs.

Victor laughs, one meant to deny bad intentions. “I did not mean to offend, Yuuri- Lord Katsuki. But I am a traveler that has been to many lands and seen many sights and heard many stories. I have heard of immortals before, of grand sages and master mages, but none of them quite lived up to what rumour said of them. So pardon me for being curious about the immortal man who sends out animals to do his errands. Marvelous animals, too! Quite intelligent. I followed a pair in order to find your place.” It’s a habit he gets into, raining down casual words to offer up intentions that lack hostility. Yakov had hated it because of how long they’d known each other, and could tell the truth of the tactic.

Yuuri stopped fiddling with his sleeves and instead leans forward on the table again. This close, and Victor is able to notice the finest of things- like how long his eyelashes are, the way they flutter, the beautiful spectrum of brown in his eyes. This close, and he wonders whether this closeness is something that other travelers before have had the opportunity to share. “Just call me Yuuri. Lord Katsuki was my father.”

 _Ah, he is not upset,_ Victor notes with relief. “Of course, Yuuri.” He drags out the vowels, because he can, and he just barely catches the twitch of Yuuri’s fingers.

Yuuri draws back suddenly, sitting in his chair perched with all the dignity one would expect of a lord. “You may stay for three days, Victor.” There is nothing in his voice that betrays dislike, but there is no warmth, either. A measure of fondness, maybe, but Victor dismisses it as his own hopeful hallucination. After all, they had merely shared a glass of wine, not even known each other for more than fifteen minutes.

“Only three days?” It’s too short for Victor to learn everything that he wants to learn from Yuuri.

A nod. “For three days you may stay here, though I insist you must dine with me. There are rooms inside that you may sleep in, and I will share with you the comforts of my home.” His voice reminds Victor almost of businessmen in how the words sound like he’s said them a thousand times. Considering that this man is supposedly immortal, that may be the case.

Victor pretends to think, pressing a finger to his lips in mock seriousness. “What if I wish to stay longer than three days?”

The air seems to shift, Yuuri’s posture just the slightest bit straighter, his hands cupping his knees as if the signet ring that is on his right hand is heavier than it appears to be. “... Any may stay for three days,” Yuuri says, “As long as they pay a price.”

“A price?” Victor echoes. While Yuuri has sat back, Victor is forward, body weight mostly on his elbows on the table between them. He can’t help but want to press, because a price could mean anything at all.

Yuuri’s expression turns fond, nostalgia tinting his next words. “I have no want for money, Victor. I simply want something you wish to give me in return for letting a complete stranger stay in my home for more than three days. It is only fair, no?”

“What kind of price have people paid in the past?”

More nostalgia. “One man was a merchant, and he gave me some of his wares for free. They were nice, and not anything that I’d had before, so he ended up staying another two days.”

 _An item, something that surprises him, something that he does not have._ Victor notes down the potential prices he may have to pay in order to stay long enough to satiate his curiousity.

“One woman was a nature mage,” Yuuri continues, looking off towards the back of the manor. Victor cranes his neck, but all he sees is a tree from his position. “She used her magic to help u- me make a vegetable garden.  Keepsake, I think her name was.”

 _Something that requires personal effort and magic._ Unfortunately, Victor was not quite proficient with magic no matter how much Yakov had tried to hammer it in him, so that was immediately out. Though there were plenty of other options he could use that would have a personal touch.

“Some carpenters on the way to Winter Festival years ago made some new furniture for me. Many families have taught me recipes that had long been passed down from their ancestors.”

None of them, Victor is glad to note, requires any particular sacrifice. It’s not what he had expected. “What makes these suitable payment, Yuuri?”

His smile is small and reminds Victor a broken-winged warbler unable to fly home. “They are satisfactory to me, even if they are not conventional,” the man answers. He looks around his estate with the same smile, and then gives Victor his full attention once again. “I’ll prepare a room for you, Victor,” Yuuri says, holding out a hand as he stands up. Victor stands as well, and grasps it.

They shakes hands, and it feels businesslike and _wrong,_ all intimacy they had shared _gone_. Victor feels keenly off-kilter as Yuuri offers to take his bags and pets Makkachin before leading the way inside his house. He takes the wine bottles and the glass chalices as he follows his host in.

“Thank you for allowing me into your home, Yuuri,” Victor says as he steps inside the manor for the first time. He’s been in castles before, basilicas of sages, in very many grand halls, so nothing is surprising about Yuuri’s. The ceiling is high, and the entryway leads up to a staircase that splits to the west wing and the east wing. He glimpses a kitchen and a library on the first floor even as Yuuri bids him to leave the wine and the chalices on a low table.

It’s mostly wood inside, a dark warm cherry tone. While the house is built for nobility, clearly, the smooth bannisters worn with age and thousands of hands leaning on them make the interior seem soft. Homely. It’s bright inside at the moment, from so many windows that lets the sun shine through, but there are sconces on the walls for lanterns to be lit at night. Yuuri takes his luggage to the east wing, Victor treading after him.

Paintings line the walls, some of them clearly done by amateurs, others expressive and beautiful and not made in a style that he can recognize. He resolves to ask Yuuri about them later. Perhaps some travelers had left art as payment? It makes sense.

Yuuri opens a lavender door with a click of a key Victor hadn’t seen before, and sets his bags down at the foot of a bed. Makkachin shoves past Victor to scamper around the room, nails clicking against the hardwood. It’s a fine room, not overly large or insultingly small. A bed is in the center, and there are wardrobes and small tables and a large table for furniture. They’re clean, and well-cared for. “Do you have servants?” Victor can’t help but ask.

Yuuri shakes his head. “No,” he says. He walks carefully around the room, hand smoothing over tables and a finger checking mirrors for clarity. “I have no need for servants.”

In a house this big, had it been any other person, Victor would have thought them a liar. But Yuuri has no reason to lie, and the denial had been simple, without pride. “I see.”

Yuuri checks various spots in the room as Victor stands awkwardly, unsure of what to do. Shortly, he’s spared of the awkwardness by Yuuri approaching him with a congenial smile. “This shall be your room, Victor. It was called the Lavender Room, once. Everything is in good condition. Feel free to relax here.”

Victor bows, bending at the waist. “Thank you for your hospitality,” he says, when all he really wants to do is grab Yuuri’s hand, try to capture that strange intimacy they had had in the gazebo over wine. _I have plenty of time._ He reminds himself.

“Thank you for visiting me.” Yuuri’s voice is strangely soft, and not at all like one would expect from a man about to host a completely unexpected guest.

At that moment, Victor remember’s Yuuko’s words.

_“He’s lonely.”_

* * *

“All I ask of you is to not go into the kitchen or the west wing,” Yuuri says on autopilot. “I take my meals at eight, noon, and six, and I hope you will join me.”

“Of course I will,” the visitor- _Victor_ , replies with a warm chuckle. “I look forward to eating the food of an immortal.” There is no malice in his voice like those that seek immortality. Yuuri has noticed that since the beginning, but he stuffs the hope of that realization in the same place as his excitement when Victor had asked about staying longer than three days.

Yuuri shakes his head to clear his thoughts. “It’s nothing too special, really. While my estate may be fine, I am no professional cook. I can promise it won’t kill you, though.”

Victor smiles still. “I can’t help but look forward to it, though!” he exclaims. “I mean, you have lived quite a long time, so you must have cooked many times and refined your cooking, right?” His mouth goes slight heart-shaped when he smiles.

It’s kind of cute. “Ah...” Yuuri doesn’t know how to respond to that at all. “A-anyway, your dog may go as he pleases, but if he is not used to being indoors,  my kennels are comfortable and my dogs are friendly.”

Said dog (which looks like his own Vic, now that he thinks about it) is currently rolling on the bed. Eh, dog hair was not the worst thing to clean out of bed-sheets. “I’ll leave it up to Makkachin, whether he would rather be with me or with the other dogs.” Victor whistles, and the poodle rolls off the bed and runs to him, full of exuberance at the new setting.

Yuuri can’t help his own smile. Victor feels like a kind person, if a bit too forward, and the fact that he clearly cares about his dog is a good sign. “Very well then. Do you have any questions, Victor?”

“I do.” And suddenly he was in Yuuri’s space, so close their breaths intermingle. A hand touches Yuuri’s chin, a terrifyingly intimate gesture, and the other takes his right hand and lifts it up as Victor kisses the back of it, only breaking eye contact for a split second in order to do so. “What are your interests? What sort of person are you? Have you had past lovers?”

The questions hang in the air as Yuuri can only stare back up at his guest, feeling as if Victor intends to devour him in a not wholly unpleasant way. But as a finger strokes along his jawline, Yuuri wrenches himself away, throwing himself through the doorway. “I- Settle in! Take your time and-”

“But I want to know more about you,” Victor says plaintively.

Yuuri schools his expression, trying to not put his hands over his heart to try to calm himself. It wouldn’t do to let this man know how flustered he was. “You have three days to do that, Victor,” he croaks, and leaves the hallway as quickly as possibly without losing his veneer of composure.

He heads for the kitchen and opens the small doorway that leads outside, where all his animals would leave the food they had bought. Yuuri falls back on muscle memory as he picks up the saddlebags and unpacks them and puts the food in their proper places. Bread on the counter, to be eaten at dinner, flour and dry goods in the pantry, meat and fish in the Box of Lasting one mage had gifted him decades ago.

The work is mindless, like all housekeeping work tends to be, and he’s glad for it. Yuuri needs the work so that he can slowly unravel the memory of what had just occurred. He has been approached and propositioned in the past (unfortunately for many, Yuuri does not count sex as an adequate payment) but Victor’s approach had left him breathless, even though Yuuri had thought himself immune to such things long ago.

It’s the intimacy, he figures, sighing over the memory of lips pressing against the back of his hand. Victor’s eyes had shone with the promise of intimacy, not something that was purely physical pleasure. And intimacy to someone as secluded as Yuuri was like offering a dying man a chance to live. But he kills those hopes, kills the realization, because Victor wants to know about him, the immortal. Soon, Yuuri thinks, Victor will know that he is not interesting, even if his immortality may be.

He wishes the thought doesn’t make him feel a flicker of sadness.

“Papa,” his son’s voice breaks him out of his reverie, “Are you making katsudon pirozhki?” Yurochka comes up from behind, a joy in his words that makes Yuuri’s heart feel lightened from his thoughts about the traveler.

Yuuri looks down to realize that in his musings, he had begun setting out the ingredients for pirozhki dough. “I did promise you, did I not?” he says, and can’t help but tweaking his son’s nose with a flour-covered hand. Yurochka’s face shines before he goes cross-eyed, sneezing at the flour.

“Papa!” he whines, swatting him for making him sneeze. “You’re going to get flour everywhere!” he pats down his clothes to make sure none of the powder has gotten on him.

Yuuri laughs at Yuri’s cross expression. “I’m sorry, Yurochka.” Noticing what was in his son’s hands, he can’t help but ask, “Are you going out again?”

He knows his son well enough to catch a flash of guilt. “I’m just going to run around the forest, Papa,” Yuri says, clenching his leopardskin. “I’ll be back soon.”

Yuuri doesn’t usually call his son’s words into question, but he taps the counter and raises an eyebrow. “Are you sure? You don’t want to help me make katsudon pirozhki?” he makes sure to add a teasing lilt to his voice, and Yurochka hesitates.

His eyes dart between the forest, trees with soft pats of snow on their branches, and the ingredients on the counter. “I...” The boy is at war with himself for several seconds before he goes to put his cloak down. “I can run around the forest later.” Yuri decides, rolling up his sleeves. “Should I crush the dry bread into crumbs, Papa?”

“That would be very helpful.” Yuri’s face beams before he goes to scrounge on the drying shelf for the right kind of bread to fry the pork cutlets with.

As they work together to make the food, an easy silence interspersed with his son occasionally grumbling about a particular task, Yuuri takes comfort in Yurochka’s presence, letting go of all his thoughts on their new guest for now, and enjoying this time with his son.

His son.

Sometimes, Yuuri wakes up in the middle of the night with the echoes of nightmares tangled around his tongue, and Yurochka will open his door with hot tea and one of his stuffed cats. Sometimes, after a cup of tea, Yurochka will crawl into bed next to him and curl into sleep like a cat and Yuuri lets himself enjoy the intimacy of having family near him. Sometimes instead, Yuuri ends up unable to sleep, and seeks refuge from his dreams by how the moonlight makes Yurochka seem even softer than he usually is.

Too many times to count, Yuuri has acknowledged that Yurochka makes it easier for him to breathe every day, ever since the boy was ten and his grandfather died and Yuri had demanded to stay with him instead of going into town with Yuuko to be adopted by a family there. Taking care of a child had brought new meaning to his immortal life, and watching as Yuri grows up into a fine young man brings Yuuri endless joy and bittersweet regret, with every inch that Yuri grows and every day that he bounds out of the house.

The joy is from this: knowing that even though Yuuri is stagnant, frozen in time, he is able to help others flourish. He is capable of raising a child that his parents would have loved, that he has no doubt his sister would have too. Knowing that Nikolai Plisetsky would have thanked him for taking care of Yurochka. Learning new recipes; just because Yuuri didn’t mind eating the same pattern of meals every week does not mean that Yuri did, and it’s still an adventure to venture into his mother’s cookbooks and the recipes that travelers have given him to cook something new to watch delight spring on his son’s face.

There is joy in watching Yurochka play with the animals, in teaching him his letters and numbers and reading to him at night and tucking him in. Joy as his son helps him around the house, and reminds Yuuri that while he is immortal, he is human, and he can love still and be loved still.

The regret is from this: Yuuri knowing that all good things must come to an end. That someday, Yurochka must spread his wings and fly away, because he is not trapped to the estate like Yuuri is. For every birthday that goes by and they celebrate with cake and sometimes Yuuko’s family, there is the weight that Yuri is getting older while Yuuri is not.

There is regret in the adage that parents should not be the ones to bury their children, and bile rises up  in Yuuri’s throat every time he remembers that his son is mortal and thus will die before him; that one day, he will have to see Yurochka walk away and never return, or bury him next to his grandfather.

Yuuri doesn’t know which would break his heart more. He never dwells on in longer than necessary.

But living as long as he has, Yuuri has long learned that living thinking the best of the world is better than thinking the worst of it, so he treasures these moments. Both of them, making katsudon pirozhki together. Eating meals together, Yuri’s expression whenever Yuuri makes him a new cat toy.

The moments that Yuuri swells with love for his son, and bitterly wishes that platonic love was enough to break this curse he is under.

* * *

Yuri waves at Papa before he heads for the forest, making sure that the new guest is nowhere in sight before he leaves the house.

He doesn’t like the new guest. He had watched the man with silver hair drink wine with Papa, and had heard Papa rush to the kitchen with panic echoing in his footsteps. Papa always walks like a noble whenever guests are here, because the part of Papa that is also Lord Katsuki is the one that people expect when they stay. But this man has made Papa break from habit, so Yuri knows that his feeling of wariness about the man was right.

Normally, he doesn’t like guests at all, period. Except the ones that stay longer than three days, because they’re the ones that treat Papa like a normal human being. Those ones are the ones that get to meet Yuri, because otherwise Yuri stays out of sight from guests as much as possible. No need for word to spread that the immortal man has a son, and Yuri would rather kill someone than ever be used against Papa.

While he knows that Papa always lets guests stay because Papa is lonely, Yuri wishes that he was enough for Papa to not feel lonely. After all, Yuri never feels lonely, and Papa is the only person he really knows. Yuuko and her family don’t count because they only come by once a month. It grates that Papa can’t not feel lonely even though Yuri is with him, but he can’t really do anything about it, and only watches as guests come to their home, and some come into Papa’s heart, and walks away with pieces of it.

While they make Papa the happiest, Yuri thinks he hates those the most. They’re dangerous in a different way than idiots that would think to kill Papa for witchcraft.

The new guest feels dangerous like that.  

He shrugs his leopardskin on once he’s safely in the cover of the trees, and takes a moment to bask in the sight of snow making the woods shine with white. Winter is his favorite time of the year, because ice freezes and animals leave pawprints and he and Papa go ice-skating when the pond is frozen over.

Hunting is harder, but they don’t hunt for food much anyways. Yuri pulls his leopardskin cloak tight around his neck. Papa had given it to him years ago, and it has been his favourite birthday present from Papa ever since.

The forest hums with life around where he had been standing, for where a human boy had been before is now a snow leopard. Yuri indulges in a contented purr before his muscles flex, tail swishign behind him, and he launches into the woods, the cold barely noticeable through his hide. Birds flutter away, rabbits hop into their nooks to hide from the predator that had suddenly appeared.

Ever since Papa had given him the leopardskin on his thirteenth birthday, Yuri had put it to good use, pulling it over his shoulders tight and shifting into the big cat to look at the world through feline eyes. Sometimes, his cats will join him as he stalks through the forest, and they talk to him when he’s like this, telling him about the mice they’ve killed in the basement or how the new guest smells rotten.

While Papa knew about the shapeshifting, and was actually quite pleased and surprised when Yuri had first done it, he doesn’t know about the other reason Yuri loves the cloak.

The leopard-Yuri leaps into a tree branch and prowls through the higher part of the forest as he looks at the windows of the rooms on the east wing, watching the one the stranger is in. The leopard smiles.

It is not a nice smile.

Yuri’s favourite part of the cloak was that people tended to be scared of big carnivorous cats creeping around.

The new guest will never see him coming. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise, Yuri is a leopard-shifter.
> 
> Victor watch your back. 
> 
> Yuuri pls put a leash on your son. 
> 
> Side note: the scene which Victor walks up to the gazebo and drinks with Yuuri is the image I got from the song that inspired me to write this whole damn fic. It was frustrating to write because holy SHIT YOU TWO JUST MET WHY IS THERE SO MUCH UST??? CHILL. [ now with commissioned art by the wonderful kanton of Victor and Yuuri's first meeting! ](http://kantonliu.tumblr.com/post/159838207171/commission-for-exile-wrath-for-the-fic-aria/)
> 
> Comments are super welcome and fuel my writing (^o^)/ also feel free to pm me on tumblr.


	3. cut the throats of those that sing of love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The lonely man has a name, and it’s Yuuri. 
> 
> The manor is lovely, the food that Yuuri makes is delicious, and Victor slowly pries into Yuuri’s confidence. Unfortunately, the evening does not end with him in Yuuri’s bed, but rather him running from a giant leopard. Great way to make an impression, Nikiforov.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope everyone had happy holidays! Unfortunately I was having a bit of a hard time with this chapter, so it's a bit later than when I planned to upload.
> 
> I'm really happy at how well this fic has been received ;A; thank you all for your kind comments. Also I've added some clarification notes at the bottom.

 

_Con una spada vorrei tagliare / With a sword I wish I could cut  
Quelle gole che cantano d'amore / Those throats singing about love_

* * *

 

Victor wakes up to the clash of metal echoing throughout the building.

It’s repetitive, and there is no yelling that he would associate with an emergency, so he takes his time getting ready. The sun is dim, cold light pouring through the windows of the Lavender Room. The room itself is warm, with the fireplace crackling with steady embers and rune-scripted cloth channeling heat from the fireplace all around.

He picks his outfit carefully, wanting to make a good impression on his host. Yesterday, when they had first met, it is to Victor’s regret that he’d been a mess, having tripped over too many tree branches to be considered presentable. No wonder Yuuri had run from him yesterday! A hot bath after dinner had done wonders, but by then, the lord had disappeared for the rest of the evening, even though Victor had staked out the downstairs lounge to catch him in conversation.

Victor pauses as he goes through his shirts. Dinner had been... interesting. Regrettably, Victor had slept after settling in and hadn’t had time before the meal to ask Yuuri questions, and had been too busy licking katsudon pirozhki off his fingers to properly pester the man. It had been delicious, nothing that Victor had ever eaten before.

“Katsudon pirozhki, you call this?” he had asked.

“The recipe was a gift.” And that had been that.

He decides to wear a white button-up and a grey waistcoat, one of his nicer outfits from a past he tries not to think about. A quick look outside the window to check the weather, and Victor threw on a longer jacket to stave off the cold.

Makkachin raises his head from where he is curled around the fireplace as Victor changes, and by the time he’s about the leave the round, the poodle is at his feet, tail wagging and ready for the day.

It takes awhile to find the enigmatic lord, relying only on the sounds of metal ringing. Victor finds him in a room next to the lounge, behind a heavy door. He’d hesitates before entering, and knocks twice. “Good morning!” he injects as much cheer in his voice as possible.

The sounds stop. “You may come in.”

Victor pushes aside the door and is completely unprepared for the sight in front of him. He feels incredibly overdressed all of a sudden, as Yuuri is wearing plain trousers and _nothing else_. Under Victor’s stare, he picks a towel up from a metal rack and wipes his face and shoulders of sweat. All Victor can really comprehend, though, is the fact that Yuuri has. Just. A fine body. A very fine body.

“You’re staring,” Yuuri says, amusement in his voice. Victor tears his gaze from Yuuri, and fixates on the object in his right hand instead. _A rapier?_

In his heart, Victor can’t feel the slightest bit sorry for ogling, even though he knows that it was probably rude at him. But he wants Yuuri to not be offended by him, so he does it anyway. “Beauty should be admired,” Victor quips. _Wait, that’s not an apology._

Yuuri laughs, a short one-note sound. “Hah! You’re quite the charmer, aren’t you?” he shoots back. Suddenly, his expression closes off into something formal. “Good morning to you, Victor. I pray that you slept well?”

Victor decides right then that he hates this expression. “I did. The room is quite fine, and much better than most that I have slept in.”

Yuuri looks as if he wants to say something, but doesn’t.

 _Well if he’s going to be like that..._ Victor steps further into the room, taking notice of the metal racks on the sides, the bare wood floor, the variety of blades lined up on the wall, and the single bar next to a mirror. An interesting room, he thinks. Almost like an armory, but too simple for it. “I think I would have slept better if you were next to me, though.” Victor places his arm on the bar, and observes Yuuri’s reaction through the mirror.

The mask of formality shatters as Yuuri’s cheeks take on the slightest bit of pink, and his posture loosens. “You are quite forward, aren’t you?” his voice sounds almost shy.

“Better forward than backwards, I say.” Victor winks at him.

Yuuri laughs again, and the sound is so very gratifying to hear. “You must have slept well, to be able to flirt so shamelessly in the morning. Would you like to join me for breakfast?”

Victor agrees, obviously, and doesn’t even bother to hide his staring as Yuuri puts his rapier aside and shucks on a shirt. He and Makkachin follow the man out of the room, and Yuuri mentions something about having already set out food for his own dogs and Makkachin is led out to join them.

Breakfast is a delicious affair, ridiculously fluffy griddle cakes and a sweet syrup with fruit cooked to a compote. Victor can’t help but moan in bliss, and if it makes his host blush a little, well, he may or may not be putting on the seduction. It’s hard not to, because for all the nobility and grace that Yuuri carries himself with, there’s an edge of desperation there when he interacts with Victor. It’s small, and not something that Yuuri seems to be aware of, but it makes Victor want to run his hands over him, to touch and find out whether Yuuri’s skin is as smooth as it looks, cradle the immortal in his arms and hold him close enough that their hearts might beat in tandem.

Immortality is such a lonely thing, after all.

“So,” Victor sets his fork down and leans his chin on his hands. “That was delicious, thank you.”

“I’m glad you enjoyed it.” Yuuri sets down his fork as well, and leans his head on his hands in mimicry of Victor. “So?”

“What do you think of love?” Victor asks.

”Platonic love should be appreciated more,” Yuuri says, without missing a beat. “I have seen friendships among travellers that come and go, and all these young people talk about finding their one true love, and I see the ache in their friendships that is left when they say those words.” He pauses, drops his gaze for a moment. “The love between family, too, is something that is precious.”

That is... an unexpected answer. “Storge and philia and agape, then. Those are what you value,” Victor muses, casting his eyes to the books that line the dining room. Yuuri has an awful lot of books. “Do you read Grecian classics?”

“I’ve read them,” Yuuri’s drags his hand across the back of his neck. A nervous gesture? “I know that philia is what they called brotherly love-”

“Philia is the love in friendships, the platonic love that we say in these modern days, though most associate platonic as simply anything not romantic.” Victor cuts him off, tapping a finger to his cheek. “Storge is the love between parents and child. A deep-seated affection that comes naturally when you care about someone that you have raised or has raised you.” He sees Yuuri clench his hands just the slightest. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have interrupted you like that.”

“It’s fine,” Yuuri reassures him, but his attention is elsewhere now, eyes flitting towards the stairs that lead to the west wing, and the curtains covering _something_ that hangs above the stairs. “I don’t remember these in that classics I read.”

Victor shrugs. “They come up more in philosophy than in myths. Do you read philosophy?”

Yuuri smiles wryly, something sardonic coming up on his face. “While I do like to indulge in reading to fill my endless time, I find fiction to pass it better.” There is a chiding there, but Victor pays it no mind.

“What about eros? Sexual love. Surely a man of your good looks must have experienced eros of a kind.” He makes sure to cast his gaze downwards, looking at Yuuri through his eyelashes, and puts his finger to his lips. Yuuri’s eyes follow the movement, but he merely smiles. It’s almost a smirk, but not quite, as if Yuuri is tamping down his reactions.

“Not often. I’ve had offers before, too many to count, but I am not one to be ‘consumed by lust’, as a poet would say. Storge is kinder, more constant and more... fulfilling, I find.” Victor pouts, and earns a laugh from Yuuri. “You’d have to embody eros itself before having a hope to seduce me, Victor. I have lived a _very_ long time, after all.”

Victor has a feeling that it would take more than eros to seduce Yuuri. Well, seduction is only one way to obtain the answers he’s looking for; there are plenty of other avenues. “You miss your family?” Yuuri raises an eyebrow. “You focus on that the most.”

He barely hears it, but Yuuri inhales sharply, and breaks eye contact. “I have lived a long time,” he demurs. “Why do you ask of love, Victor? I thought you were interested in my immortality.”

 _Oh._ He stands up with a flourish. “Really? I’m much more interested in you, Yuuri. People are shaped by their experiences, after all, and your experiences are vastly different from others.” Yuuri blinks, and Victor sees his mask fall, posture straightening in something akin to excitement. “Please, tell me about yourself.”

Yuuri hesitates. There’s an internal struggle there, eyes flashing with anxiousness and his teeth kneading his lip. “Excuse me.” He takes their empty dishes away back to the kitchen as he thinks. Eventually though, he returns and offers a hand to Victor. “Walk with me?” he asks.

The sun is bright, winter birds are warbling as they step outside the manor, a layer of frost on the ground, Yuuri’s arm hooked around Victor’s. It feels natural. “Where should I begin?”

Victor closes his eyes, and focuses on the sensation of Yuuri’s arm in his. “My previous question.. What do you think about love? In the romantic sense, though.”

The answer comes in the form of words half-said, half-sung. “If I had a sword, I would cut throats  of those that sing of love.” Yuuri’s lips are curled in a terribly genuine deprecating smile.

It’s startling. Victor takes too long to formulate his reply, it seems, because Yuuri detaches himself from Victor’s side. “Is that not what you were expecting?”

“Yes.” Honesty is the best thing to treat Yuuri with. “I didn’t think your thoughts would be so... vehement.” A memory of this morning surfaces, and Victor hides his thoughts behind a bright smile. “So that’s why you practice swordplay?” he asks in jest.

Yuuri smiles back, that one small smile that nags at Victor’s heart. “Of course not,” he throws back, “It doesn’t hurt to keep my skills sharp, though. Not all travellers are like you.”

Victor flips his bangs with his hair. “I do admit that I am quite good-looking.”

“You are a silly man,” Yuuri laughs, but the implications of his words hang in the air, clearly understood by both of them. Compared to travellers that would do harm to Yuuri, Victor figures he must not be that troublesome, considering his intentions run more along the lines of rampant curiousity. “Why all these questions of love, Victor?”

Somehow, Victor manages to reach out and hook their arms again, contentment surfacing when Yuuri doesn’t pull away. “Isn’t that how most curses are broken?” he asks. “True love’s first kiss, as the legends go?”

This earns him a chuckle. “You ask because you think love would break my immortality?” there’s something like disbelief in Yuuri’s voice.

Victor just shrugs. “It was worth a shot to ask.”

They walk in silence, breath misting in the air. “So tell me about yourself, Victor,” Yuuri breaks the silence himself. “You said you’re a traveller. Where have you gone?”

“I’ve been to every country on this continent,” Victor begins, “Also to places like the Nocturne Treesea, the Safir Plains...” The rest of the day is spent idling like that, Victor trailing after Yuuri, or walking beside him, arms linked, narrating his travels.

Instinctively, he knows that today, Yuuri won’t tolerate any more prying. But the immortal’s touches are soft, like he can’t quite believe Victor is there, so Victor stays near. And if he returns the touches in kind, draping an arm over Yuuri’s shoulders or letting their hands brush as Victor points out places on the map in Yuuri’s study, neither say anything.

* * *

Hours later, after lunch and tea and dinner and the sunset, Victor’s words finally die in his throat. He observes, instead, drinking in the sight of how the candlelight softens Yuuri’s features with warm orange. At some point, Yuuri’s hair had fallen from being slicked-back and his bangs shadowed his eyes. His responses are just a touch slower, and he’s leaning into Victor a bit as they sit together in his study, poring over maps so Victor can describe his travels in the Safir Plains with some geographical context.

Yuuri is a comforting weight next to him; the aftertaste of the honey scones they had for desert still hang on Victor’s tongue. It makes Victor himself feel warm, as if he hasn’t been frozen for years travelling through the world. So he aches, just a little, when he nudges Yuuri with the suggestion that perhaps, it is time for them to retire.

“Thank you for telling me your stories,” Yuuri bids him where the stairs split to go to the east and west wings.

In his eyes, Victor sees a different reason for gratitude instead. _Thank you for making me feel less lonely._

“I enjoyed today,” Victor murmurs, the quietness of the manor and the dim lighting of the lanterns making him feel as if he should match the softness in the air. “Goodnight, Yuuri.”

He watches Yuuri step up into the West Wing, sleep making his shoulders heavy, and a yawn slipping from his lips. He wonders how someone that has lived so long can still be so... fragile.

It’s startling, Victor thinks as he ascends to the East Wing. Yuuri is full of surprises. To be fair, they’ve only each other for little more than a day, but Victor has often grown bored of people’s company within minutes of meeting. But his time today was... comfortable.

It’s with these thoughts and these musings that he enters the corridor leading to his room, and sees a lurking shadow in the darkness.

Victor’s thoughts are ripped violently from Yuuri to dodging the massive beast that lunges past him, at an angle that it could have torn into his side. He holds up his lantern to shed light on the situation, and is met with two violently shimmering green eyes set in in a feline body covered with white and black fur.

The snow leopard (he didn’t think that snow leopards could have green eyes, much less _why on earth is one doing here?!_ ) opens its mouth in a threatening display. Victor holds up his hands and doesn’t break eye contact with it as he slowly backs away, and calculates his chances of escape.

It tenses, and Victor braces himself, lashing out with the only thing in hand- the lantern. It impacts the beast’s head, and it yowled angrily as he turns and runs. He hears the leopard slam into the wood where he had just been standing, “Yuuri!” he yells, running from the beast. _Is it one of the manor animals? No, it would have been mentioned-_ “Yuuri!” he screams the name again as he bursts into the main staircase, not bothering to see how close the beast was to possibly ripping into his back.

Victor has lived long, and traveled wide, and he has very little experience in the wild animal handling department, but he knows enough that the leopard had been _furious_ with him, full of killing intent. And since he had just smashed its face with an iron lantern, it would undoubtedly be angrier. “Yuuri!” he shouts for a third time, running to the door of the West Wing and raising his hand to knock-

Only to nearly fall down as the door opens, Yuuri catching him as he pitches forward. “What’s wrong?” the lord demands, alert. “Victor, what’s wrong?”

He opens his mouth to press Yuuri that there’s a giant cat trying to kill him, but he pauses, and turns around to where the beast should have been chasing after him. “I...”

“What’s wrong?” Yuuri repeats patiently. He follows Victor’s gaze, and his lips press to a tight line. “What were you running from.”

“A leopard,” Victor says. Aware that he’s mostly leaning on Yuuri because of the near fall, he makes an effort to stand up straight, and looks at his host beseechingly. “I- I don’t understand. I was walking to my room and there was a leopard there and it jumped at me like it was going to kill me!”

“Really.” Yuuri’s voice is carefully neutral.

Victor clenches the sleeve of Yuuri’s shirt. “Please, believe me. I thought it was going to kill me! I hit it with the lantern and ran!”

“And where is this murderous leopard now?”

“I don’t know!”

Silence.

Yuuri sighs, and turns to go back inside. “Go to sleep, Victor.”

“Yuuri-”

“I believe you,” Yuuri says. “So please, go back to sleep.” He reaches to Victor’s hand that is grasping his sleeve, and takes it hand is his, gently. “If you want, I will escort you back.”

Victor says nothing, but Yuuri looks at him and tugs him back to the East Wing. There is no sign of a leopard anywhere in the hall, not a single mark on the carpet. Yuuri sees him to his room, stands at the doorway as Victor changes and lights the fireplace.

“Goodnight, Yuuri,” Victor says once he’s wearing nothing but his underclothes. He feels awkward, at freaking out over seemingly nothing. Was it a hallucination? No, the impact of the lantern against its face - he definitely didn’t imagine that. “I apologize for-”

“Goodnight, Victor.” He’s cut off before he can finish. Wood creaks as Yuuri walks away. Victor almost doesn’t hear his last words. “If anything, I should be the one apologizing.”

* * *

“Yuri Plisetsky.” Yuri pulls his blankets up a little tighter. “Yuri, I know you’re awake.”

The lantern light gets brighter, and Yuri closes his eyes, but to no avail. Papa sighs, and it hurts because he sounds _disappointed_. Yuri feels the mattress shift as Papa sits on the bed, and there’s a clank as he puts the lantern on the table. “Yurochka...”

Yuri remains still.

Another sigh, and Yuri can’t help but wince a little. “Yuri, can you please explain why Victor started screaming my name because he thought a leopard was going to kill him?”

Yuri closes his eyes.

“... Yurochka, if you don’t want to talk to me, at least let me see your face,” Papa says. “I bought the healing kit.”

Wordlessly, Yuri sat up, staring at his hands as they clenched the blankets, not wanting to look at Papa in the eye. Papa gently takes his chin and turns his face. Yuri bites back a hiss of pain as a thumb brushes across the bruise marring the right side of his face. He hadn’t looked at the damage, just ran as fast as possible back to bed after he’d been hit. Thankfully, any injuries sustained as a leopard tended to not affect him that much.

Papa doesn’t say anything as he unpacks the medical kit, and Yuri shifts so that it’s easier for Papa to apply the healing paste, but the man pauses with his fingertips an inch or so from Yuri’s cheek. “I should let you wear that bruise for a few days,” Papa mutters. “What were you thinking, Yurochka?” But Papa just shakes his head and rubs it into Yuri’s cheek anyways.

They’re both stiff. Yuri unable to look at Papa and Papa practically boiling with disapproval. The last time he’d been this upset with Yuri was when Yuri had jumped from the roof in his leopard form for fun. He’d been unharmed because cat reflexes, but Papa had still been upset. _It’s all that man’s fault,_ Yuuri thinks bitterly.

“Yurochka,” Papa says, “Look at me.” It’s in _that_ voice, the one that Papa only brings out when he’s really upset, and Yuri obeys, puffing his cheeks. “Do you have anything to say for yourself?”

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m not the one you should be saying that to,” Papa snaps, and Yuri hates the guest so much right now. “Victor has done nothing to deserve you terrifying him like that-”

“Oh, so you’re calling him by name, Papa?” Yuri retorts. “He’s just another stupid traveller wanting to know about your immortality, like some dumb ass-”

“Language!”

“- that thinks immortality is great and that you’re having the best life!”

“He is not like that! Yuri!” Papa steps away from him and his hands are clenched into fists. The light from the lantern and the moonlight throws him into sharp relief, like a frozen cold statue that chills Yuri’s heart. “Yuri, Victor is a guest. He’s done nothing wrong, he’s abided by my rules of hospitality — what makes him different from the rest? Why did you have to attack him?”

“I- I just meant to scare him, Papa!’

Silence again.

Papa closes his eyes and runs his hand through his hair, a tired motion. “Yuri, I don’t know what you heard in town that made you hate Victor so much-”

There it was again. _Victor_. A name instead of a “guest”. Papa only calls those that stay longer than three days by name, but this man somehow got Papa to break that unspoken rule in twenty-four hours. Yuri wants to scream and rage and turn into a leopard and chase the guest — _intruder_ — away, because he’s the most dangerous kind of guest, the kind that Papa will _miss_ and leave an empty space that Yuri won’t be able to make Papa forget.

“-but he is a guest, and if he decides to stay longer than three days, when I introduce you to him, you will _apologize_ for scaring him like that.”

Papa’s words hurt more than that damned traveller smashing Yuri’s face with an iron lantern. “Yes, Papa.”

Papa sighs, and puts things back in the medical kit and picks up his lantern. “Goodnight, Yurochka.”

“Goodnight, Papa,” Yuri says numbly.

When Papa leaves, Yuri puts his head into his pillow and screams in frustration. That man was supposed to run out of the house like the rest did, not run to Papa! Run into his room so Yuri could corner him and terrify him into leaving! But no, _Victor_ had to run to Papa, and _Victor_ was the one that Papa defended. It’s not _fair_.

Yuri feels like poison is bubbling in his veins, the pain in his heart overpowering the wound on his face. He understands why Papa takes travellers in, why Papa lets them stay with no questions. But it doesn’t mean Yuri has to like it at all.

This morning, Papa had been sparring with him, teaching him how to fight with live steel. And then the guest had to show up, and occupied Papa for the literal rest of the goddamn day. Yuri hits the mattress to vent his frustrations a little, imagining that it’s the guest’s stupid face. Papa had cooked for him like usual, but they didn’t get to eat together, because _Victor_ was so special that Papa wanted to spend the whole day with him, and Victor apparently has zero interest exploring the estate without Papa.

He snarls into his pillow. And it’s because that damn traveller that Papa got upset with him. It’s all his fault.

Yuri flops around and stares at the ceiling, too angry to sleep anymore. _I don’t want to apologize to him,_ he thinks sullenly, _it’s all his fault, why do I have to apologize?_

A thought occurs to him. Yuri will be introduced to the guest if he decides to stay for more than three days, and Papa will make him apologize then.

So all he has to do is make sure that the guest doesn’t stay.

He jumps out of his bed and rummages in his wardrobe for where he’d thrown his cloak when he had bolted back in and ripped it off in a hurry. Thankfully, Papa hadn’t thought about taking it away. Yuri clutches it to his chest as he goes back to bed, thinking furiously how to make the guest go away. For good.

* * *

In a room in the West Wing, filled with books and papers across half a dozen desks, Yuuri curls up on his own bed, blankets weighing down in mimicry of the comfort of a person.

_“Really? I’m much more interested in you, Yuuri. People are shaped by their experiences, after all, and your experiences are vastly different from others. Please, tell me about yourself.”_

Those words...

They ring in his head, along with the stories that Victor had told him, the way that he’d worn a fond smile on his face. The dramatic effects, voice switching to falsetto for the tale of one memorable courtesan Victor had encountered.

 _He’s not like that,_ Yuuri had said earlier, to his son. _Not like those that would seek immortality, seek to use me._ He has known Victor for but a day, but the man is... something about him makes Yuuri want to be intimate with him, indulge in hugs and the warmth of another person in a way that he would not ask of his son. Granted, Victor is very attractive, but he’s also... kind. Genuine in that he wants to know _Yuuri_ , not the immortal lord.

Few ever ask, ever wonder about the man that stands under the label of “immortal”, but Victor has disarmed him easily. Too easily, with his casual touches, as if Yuuri is a normal person, with the way that he doesn’t appraise Yuuri like someone to milk information about immortality out of. He wants information about Yuuri the _person_ , and-

 _Oh,_ he thinks, clutching his chest, _maybe this is why Yurochka is scared of him._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so a bit of some explanation bc I'm not sure if these came across clearly in the story: 
> 
> 1) About Yuuri's characterization: he's hosted guests before, so many times in his life. He's been framed with the labels of "lord" and "immortal" and so he tended to keep them at a distance and simply be a polite host. The three-days thing is because usually people leave by then, disappointed that he's a great host but overall not very interesting. Ones that stick around longer usually get to see more of Yuuri as a person, but people barely look at him and think that he's in a bad situation. So Victor has essentially blugeoned past those two masks in that he wants to know about Yuuri himself, and this is throwing him off and making him somewhat vulnerable. 
> 
> 2) Victor's intentions to Yuuri are not malicious, but Yuri dislikes him because he sees that Victor may harm his father emotionally when he leaves, and that's the worst kind of damage. So he wants Victor to go away before he hurts Yuuri, and is blaming everything on Victor because he's pretty immature. He thinks that he understands Yuuri's motives for everything, but doesn't understand enough.
> 
> 3) Yuuri has been in a lot of relationships in the past. Doesn't have the fondest memories of romantic love, because all of those relationships hadn't lasted long. Also, he does not know how to end his own immortality. Because of his relationship with Yuri, he values familial love the most right now. 
> 
> 4) Yuuri and Yuri were sparring in the morning and Yuri left through a side-door when Victor showed up. Victor is not to go into the West Wing or the kitchen because Yuuri eats with his son in the kitchen and the West Wing is where he and Yuri sleep. 
> 
> 5) Yuri doesn't interact with guests that don't stay longer than three days because he doesn't see the point. They don't even know of his existence. Yuuri usually calls Yuri "Yurochka" and only drops it if Yuri is in Big Trouble.
> 
> Hope these make sense! Feel free to pester me on tumblr or in the comments if you're curious about anything ^^ I'll answer things as long as the answer doesn't lead to being spoiler-y.


	4. verses of burning passion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yuuri is occupied for the day, so Victor decides to read. 
> 
> That is, read Yuuri's journals, compiled over the course of about six hundred and fifty years. They're terrifying, and interesting, and it turns out Yuuri has... a son? 
> 
> His son who apparently was the leopard that tried to attack him last night, what the fuck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *CRIES A LOT* I meant to have this up like, last week, but my carpal tunnel kicked in so writing was out of the question for a good couple of days. Also, college started again for me, but I'm still planning on posting at least 1 thing a week (Whether oneshot or chapter update)
> 
> Have a longer chapter than usual to make up for the wait.

_Vorrei serrar nel gelo le mani / I wish I could seal in the ice the hands  
Che esprimono quei versi d'ardente passione / That portray those verses of burning passion_

 

On the second day, Victor wakes up in a cold sweat, half-expecting the leopard from last night to be waiting for him to rip out his throat. Thankfully, it’s not.

Makkachin isn’t in the room, either. Probably still in the kennels — he had run off to play with the other dogs yesterday. Victor doesn’t dwell on it too much, choosing instead to get up and prepare to break fast with Yuuri like yesterday.

The issue of last night lurks in his mind, though. Yuuri’s reaction, the disappearance of the creature... it’s obvious to say that Yuuri is hiding something. Victor doesn’t feel offended at this, because they’ve only known each other for a short while, after all, so it’s natural that Victor doesn’t know everything yet.

He wants to, though. Someday, be able to claim that there are few secrets in between them.

He shakes his head as he dons his coat and heads out. It’s foolish to think of such far-off dreams when today is the second day, and if he wants to stay in Yuuri’s house after tomorrow he needs to figure out a gift. But what is fair payment to someone who you want to find out about? What do you give to someone in exchange for asking them to let you stay in their home so you can find solace in their heart?

Victor wants so much he aches for it. Yuuri is immortal, and even if there’s no way that they can break his curse, perhaps they’d be able to resolve each other’s loneliness-

His thoughts are cut off by a loud clanging in the kitchen, and Victor quickens his footsteps, hovering outside the kitchen door, awkwardly aware that he can’t enter. He knocks, anyways, and can barely hear muffled swearing on the other end. “Yuuri, are you okay?”

More talking, and Victor hears some scuffling before the door is swung open and he’s treated to the sight of Yuuri covered head-to-toe in flour, dressed in plain clothes and an apron around his waist that clearly did little to mitigate the mess. “Vi- Victor,” Yuuri appears flustered, cheeks pink under the dusting of flour, “Good morning!” He stands in a way that he’s blocking the view, so Victor can’t see much of the kitchen except for the window that he had a direct line of sight to above Yuuri’s head.

Victor bites the inside of his mouth to stop himself from reaching out to wipe some of the flour from the corner of Yuuri’s slightly parted lips. He crosses his arms instead, to keep them from betraying him. “Good morning, Yuuri,” he greets, keeping his voice controlled. “Is everything okay?” Victor gestures to the kitchen.

Yuuri winces, and blushes a bit, bringing up a hand to rub the back of his neck. “I would say yes, but...” he laughs sheepishly in that frightfully endearing way of his, “As you can see, it’s not.”

“Would you like help?” Victor offers.

Yuuri looks scandalized. “No! You’re my guest- thought I do have to warn you that breakfast today will be a bit later than usual, as I need to clean up this mess.”

“Don’t worry,” Victor assures him, “I can wait.” Yuuri smiles at him, relieved, but Victor quickly adds, “Are you sure you don’t want my help cleaning up? I may be a guest, but I wouldn’t mind helping you out.” The smile drops, so Victor hurriedly tacks on, “Besides, clean-up would be faster and breakfast would come sooner!”

“Ah, thank you for the offer, Victor,” Yuuri is smiling thinly, in a way that Victor can’t help but feel is distant. “But I should be good.” He steps back inside the kitchen and shuts the door before Victor can get a word in edgewise.

Disappointment at the rebuffing of his offers to help eats at his hopes, but he quickly discards those thoughts and settles on mulling over more pleasant things instead.

The first time they met, Yuuri had the presence of a lord straight out of fairy-tales: drinking fine wine in a gazebo on a bright, frosty winter day, in fine clothes and awaiting the arrival of someone whose face and name he doesn’t know. _That_ Yuuri had been enchanting, enthralling, made Victor want to reach out to seek a kind of physical intimacy that he rarely did. But that Yuuri seemed distant in his elegant nobility, businesslike in a way that Victor knows — if he had offered sex, _if_ that Yuuri accepted, it wouldn’t have been satisfying, emotionally. As for being physically satisfying, theoretically, Victor has no doubts that it would have been fantastic.

The Yuuri he had met yesterday morning was still lordlike and noble, fencing with a rapier against a dummy, shirtless and with the body of a trained fighter. It’s a memory that makes Victor drool a little, more than his memory of their first meeting, because the Yuuri of yesterday had been closer, kinder, less distant and businesslike and their evening whiled away telling tales had been wonderful. Victor doesn’t get the opportunity to tell tales of his adventures often, and he wants Yuuri to look at him fondly, so the opportunity to tell his tales to Yuuri is a memory that he’ll treasure forever.

That, and memories of Yuuri’s laughter at bad jokes, or embarrassing encounters. Memories of Yuuri’s gentle smile, the way that his voice lilts when he’s curious-

Victor shakes his head, shifting his legs because thinking of Yuuri and intimacy makes his heart beat a little too fast.

“Now, this Yuuri...”

This morning, Yuuri didn’t have the sexual sort of thrall that the past two days had had in their nobility or nudity. Instead, he’d been covered in flour, undignified — but it’s that memory that has Victor’s lips spreading into a stupid smile the fastest, just because Yuuri-covered-in-flour was so silly and adorable. Yuuri-with-no-shirt and Yuuri-the-enigmatic-lord had made Victor want to kiss him senseless, but this one makes Victor want to roll up his sleeves and help him clean the kitchen, possibly help him cook, maybe mess around with the flour together...

“Breakfast is ready!” he hears the call.

Victor squeezes his eyes shut and breathes deeply before he stands up to head to the dining room. _I want to stay,_ he thinks as he sits down to eat. _I want to stay and find out all the facets to Yuuri’s personality._

_I want to stay, if he’ll let me._

* * *

Breakfast is a quiet affair, warm porridge with various things on the side to add flavour. Victor tries to start conversation once, twice, but they’re both shut down by Yuuri’s clipped answers, as if he’s distracted from Victor and focused entirely on something else. It makes something inside Victor pout terribly. “I’m sorry,” Yuuri says as he clears the dishes. “I will be busy most of the day. You are free to explore, of course. You haven’t seen much of the house, have you?”

 _I would rather spend the rest of the day with you_ , is what Victor wants to say, but he holds his tongue. “I haven’t,” he tells him instead. “I think I’ll take you up on that offer.”

Yuuri looks apologetic for a minute. “I do wish I could spend time with you, but I have... obligations.” He doesn’t elaborate on what sort of obligations he means. “We can take our meals together, still. Are you interested in any part of the mansion in particular?”

“I...” Victor lets his gaze wander over the books that surround them, that line the entire front lounge and dining area. “Is this your whole collection of books?” he asks.

Yuuri follows his gaze around the room. A soft, “Ah,” escapes his mouth. “No, actually. I have a small library in another room.”

Victor pastes on his most winning smile. “May I peruse your library then, Yuuri?”

There’s hesitation visible on Yuuri’s face, some kind of worry manifesting with the way that Yuuri bites his lips a little. “It’s in the West Wing,” he murmurs. “You must promise that you will not go into the other rooms.”

“I promise.”

“Follow me, then.”

* * *

The library is small, and possibly holds less books than the shelves that surround the lounge and the dining area, but it carries a sense of age, a smell of secrets. Yuuri left shortly after showing him the room, so Victor takes his time in exploring it. Bookshelves line the walls, and there are eight standing in the room. A small stepladder rests against one of them, clearly to aid in reaching higher shelves, In the center is a small table and a single cushioned chair, with what looks to be a rune-scripted lantern in the middle.

 _This is what I was looking for,_ Victor muses as he runs his hand over a collection of worn spines, an entire shelf of books of varying ages. They’re all leatherbound, and some of the older ones have splotches of ink on the edges, but Victor knows that their appearance has nothing to do with their true value.

He goes to the end of the shelf, seeking the oldest of them, and dislodges a considerable amount of dust when he pulls it out. Victor can’t help but sneeze, but he turns the aged book over in his hands, something like satisfaction curling in his chest when he sees what is blotted on the front.

_4th year, Winter - 8th year, Spring_

Victor breathed deeply before snagging the three books next to it and heading to the chair in the center.  

It opens with reluctance, the pages aged but with few marks of usage. The words on the parchment are messy, scrawled hastily and the lines are crooked.

 **Why me?** It opens with, the ‘y’ jagged with the writer’s desperation. **Why am I still alive? Why am I stuck here?**

**My name is Yuuri Katsuki, and I haven’t left my estate for four years now.**

**I can’t leave.**

**i can’t die either**

Victor runs his hands over the long-dried ink, “How long ago was this?” he murmurs. He checks the other books he had picked up, but there are no mentions of dates, only of years and seasons. It’s... a saddening thought, that Yuuri had lost track of time like that, not know the dates and only keeping track of the seasons. Victor sighs before leaning back and settling in for a long reading session.

* * *

“So Papa, what’s the guest doing?” Yuri asks as he skates backwards on the ice of the frozen pond. “Are you sure he won’t see me?”

Papa smiles as he skates idly next to him. “The inner library doesn’t have any windows, so don’t worry, Yurochka. I can spend time with you today.”

 _That_ was not what Yuri expected. “He’s in the inner library?!” Yuri cries. “I- you keep your _journals_ there, Papa, why would you let him-”

“Because he asked,” Papa says firmly, and he digs his toe pick in the ice to stay still. “He asked if I had any other books and asked to see them.”

“But your journals-”

Papa presses his lips together. “There’s nothing special about my journals anyways,” he mutters. “There’s nothing to worry about, Yurochka. Even if he reads about you he won’t know that you’re still staying here.”

Yuri stares at him, takes in the defensive posture of his father, the way that he’s not meeting his eyes. “You like him,” he realizes, horrified, “You want him to stay!”

“Is there something wrong with that?” Papa asks, his voice quiet. He looks at Yuri, his brown eyes unreadable. “He’s a nice person. If he wants to stay I’ll let him.”

* * *

**A mage came by today. She wanted a place to stay while doing his studies, and asked for my patronage. She offered to bring heat to the house with her magic.** Victor skims over the fifth volume, _20th summer - 24th fall._

“Well, that explains the magical apparatuses everywhere,” he realizes aloud, looking at the item providing illumination next to him. The lantern is fixed to the table, lit by tapping at one of the runes on top of it, and similarly treated metal strips run from the lamp down the table, all around the room, so that once the lantern is lit, the runes on the metal start shining bright enough to make the library as well-lit as a room with windows.

Every room, honestly, had clear signs of a fire mage’s work. Victor goes back to reading, noting that there were several pages dedicated to the woman - Mila was her name, apparently — and the specific things he had installed around the manor.

Mila’s name fades out shortly, but occasionally sketches of intricate runework show up in Yuuri’s journal, with notes done in someone else’s handwriting. **Runes for the oven,** reads one tidy note.

Eventually, the whole journal is taken over by Mila, who proceeds to ramble for the rest of the book about her work on the manor and the various minor breakthroughs she had made while treating the estate as some sort of long-term project. Victor is sure that Yakov would have found the writings thoroughly interesting, but Victor himself doesn’t do well with fire magic or rune-scripting.

Flipping through the next several volumes, Victor raises his eyebrow at Mila’s long-lasting presence. Yuuri writes of her fondly, and more than once he expresses happiness about the mage. **She has brought literal warmth to my home,** he writes, **I will be sad to see her go.**

 _There it is,_ Victor thinks grimly.

Mila leaves four volumes after she is first mentioned. **I will remember the color of her hair with the fall leaves, and with all the magic she has left to me. Safe travels, my friend.**

The bottom of the page is stained with long-dried tears, and there is a folded piece of paper tucked in there. Even to Victor, it hums faintly with the remnants of fire magic.

He doesn’t touch it.

* * *

“You’re saying that now but he’ll leave eventually, Papa,” Yuri snaps, skating in circles around his father. “Everyone leaves, like you say. But I’m still here, so why do you have to- to-”

Papa regards him calmly. “Are you jealous, Yurochka?” he asks. “He’s only been here for two days, you know.”

Mortification sizzles through Yuri, and he hates how he can feel himself flush in embarrassment. “I’m not!” he denies hotly. “It’s just- I don’t like him! I think he needs to _go away.”_

“Is that why you attacked him last night?”

Yuri falls silent.

“Yurohchka?”

Yuri huffs and looks away. “Can we just skate, Papa?” he pleads.

Papa sighs. “Very well then. But you are apologizing to him if he decides to stay.”

_He won’t be staying if I have any say in it._

“Fine.”

* * *

Victor is aware that he’s making a mess, and it will be a bitch to clean up, but — Yuuri is terrifying.

Hours ago, he had shifted from the chair to sitting in front of the books filled with the other man’s journals, journals which tell in varying amounts of detail Yuuri’s solitary existence for almost six hundred years.

_Six hundred years._

Six hundred and fifty-two, to be exact. Victor had managed to match historical events to ones in Yuuri’s journals - an incident of wounded soldiers trying to steal his horses when he was two hundred and seventy three happened around the same time Blies and its neighbor Arus had a series of border conflicts almost four hundred years ago. The famous time sorcerer Celestino, one of Yakov’s contemporaries, showed up in the journals too.

Famous merchants, various merchant caravans which cycle through the continent and only arrive in Blies every fifty years, famous mages, not-so-famous mages, heroes and villains that Victor has only heard of, never encountered — their meetings with Yuuri are recorded in the journals, along with the duration of their stay, Yuuri’s observations, his interactions with them.

 _A historian would have a field day with these books,_ Victor thinks with no small amount of wonder.

The accounts become more detailed as time goes on, Yuuri’s handwriting neater, the content less panicked and frenzied. But there are records of panic attacks, Yuuri’s numerous woes about being immortal and never trying to leave, his many attempts at _freeing himself._

Victor is aware that his breathing has become shallow, that he had denied lunch earlier while engrossed in reading, that the way that he was sitting on the floor was terrible for his back. He closes his eyes and times his breaths, placing down the latest book and leaning lack against another bookshelf. _Well, I wanted to know about Yuuri,_ he thinks faintly. _I know so much now._

He’d read the first four journals, skimmed all the ones between the fifth and the twentieth before skipping over to what had been marked as the forty-seventh, opening that one and reading the accounts of nature mage Keepsake that had grown Yuuri a vegetable garden on the estate, skimmed up through the fifty-third before grabbing random ones and flipping through them because there was a _pattern_ to all the interactions.

Mila, Celestino, Keepsake - all of them had stayed a significant amount of time. Merchant caravans had often used Yuuri’s estate as a temporary open market. But they all left, at some point. Some people even died on the grounds, and were apparently buried behind the mansion. That is, died of old age, or sickness. Time.

What terrifies Victor is that while Yuuri had welcomed them all with open arms and an open door, he pushes them away.

Celestino had stayed for ten years, three of which had been studying Yuuri’s immortality, apparently. Eventually though, he had left. What was telling though, was that Yuuri never records any attempt at making people stay. Sometimes there are whole conversations transcribed, or described, but Yuuri never asks people to stay. He leaves the door open for them, to stay if they wish, but the door is always open for them to leave as well.

There’s never an option for people to stay in Yuuri’s life. Whether they stay for three days, or a week, or a year, or even _more than a decade_ , Yuuri pushes them away, to leave.

For someone so terribly lonely, he pushes people away consistently, and that is terrifying. How can one continue to impose such solitude on themself for so long?

 **A little girl from Metzrin came by today,** began one passage. **Her name is Yuuko. She followed Vic here, as she was curious about the animals. She wanted to stay and play, but I sent her home.**

Yuuko from Metzrin, the innkeeper. Victor had laughed upon reading that entry. “No wonder she calls you the lonely man!” he cried.

Ten years later, another entry.

**The little girl from ten years ago visited me today, Yuuko. She’s older now, and is getting married! She brought her to-be-husband with her. Takeshi is a nice boy, and he was wary of me, but he is good for her.**

**I asked her why she had come, and she demanded that we all eat dinner. I allowed them, of course, but on the condition that they return to town immediately after. Metzrin town does not like me, and it is a miracle that they have not called on the royal army to do something about me. I know that they would not have taken kindly to two of their young ones disappearing to my manor.**

Six months later- **Yuuko came to visit again.** Yuuri wrote, sounding puzzled. **She brought a basket with her, and insisted we eat together. She has started an inn, and told me that her husband was covering for her, that people believed that she was ill, so that she could eat with me...**

**Yuuko is a good person, I think. She has offered to send me things, and to watch out for the exorcists or witch-hunters that may be targeting me. I refused, at first, because messing with those sorts are dangerous, but she told me she would anyway, and was just telling me of her decision.**

**I asked her why. She said that I deserved to have someone watch my back. Silly child, I am centuries older than you.**

Yuuko appeared in the journals every two or three months from that point on, without fail, except for one time that she didn’t visit for roughly seven months, only for her next visit to include her husband and her newly-born children.

**She asked me to give them a blessing, for a long life.**

**I hope Axel, Lutz, and Loop live long lives, happy ones, but certainly not as long as mine. God forbid.**

There is a deep sense of self-deprecation in Yuuri’s tone as time goes on, anxiety that bubbles in his mind and burst on the tip of his pen on the journals. He talks about his reluctance in being acquainted with Yuuko’s children, of the possible calamities that could befall the family if the rest of the town’s inhabitants found out about their relationship. He tends towards the negative, even in his fierce and very clear caring of the family.

And then... there was the incident of the Plisetskys. Victor flicks his eyes to the most recent volumes. Nikolai and Yuri Plisetsky, a grandfather and grandson pair from Arus that had stumbled upon the manor during a fierce blizzard, and ended up staying for a long time. Nikolai had died early though, about a year into their stay, and little Yuri was supposed to go with Yuuko to be adopted in Metzrin, or at least taken care of by the town. But instead, the child had dug in his heels and decided to stay with Yuuri.

 _He’d be eighteen now,_ Victor muses as he lifts up the second-to-last volume to begin, the first volume of Yuri and Yuuri’s life together. He hadn’t read through the last two books yet, having collapsed after reading about Yuuri’s conflicting feelings on adopting the little Yuri. On another note, the katsudon pirozhki recipe had apparently been from Nikolai, his gift for staying. _I wonder where the boy is now?_ He’d hadn’t seen any evidence to a second occupant in the house.

Before he can begin the next journal though, there’s a knock on the door, and Yuuri enters the library. “Vic-” he freezes upon seeing Victor on the floor, surrounded by his journals, “-tor... Victor.”

“Is it dinnertime already?” Victor wipes mental fatigue off his face and beams. “I’ll be right there once I’m done cleaning up my mess!”

Yuuri steps in hesitantly. “I...”

“Don’t worry, nothing’s damaged!” Victor jumps to his feet to usher Yuuri out of the room. “I’ll be down in a minute or so, just leave the food for me!”

Yuuri’s stricken face is some mixture of uncertainty and absolute terror, his gaze switching between Victor and the journals on the ground. “I-”

“Go on, go on!”  Victor gently pushes him out of the library, giving him a little wave before closing the door and quickly gathering the scattered journals into his arms before sorting them properly back onto the bookshelf. _I wonder why he looked so shocked? I mean, he did give me access to this room._

Dinner was a quiet affair, Yuuri in some awkward self-conscious state fiddling with his sleeves in between bites and never really looking Victor in the eye. Attempts at conversation were shut down, and Yuuri absconded as quickly as possible after clearing the dishes, his cheeks burning with mortification that Victor does not understand.

“I’m going to go take a walk outside,” Victor calls to Yuuri’s retreating back. Yuuri gives no sign that he heard, but Victor sighs and stands up to get his coat anyways.

The air is crisp and the moon reflects on the snow on the ground, making the twilight brighter than usual. Victor whistles once, a low, drawn-out sound, and in minutes Makkachin comes bounding towards him, his faithful companion almost tackling him over in greeting. “There you are, Makkachin!” Victor explains as he bends down to give the poodle a good scratch behind the ears. “You’ve been having fun with the other dogs, haven’t you?” Makkachin barks, running around Victor’s heels, and he takes this as an agreement. “Come with me for a walk, okay boy?”

He sets off towards the treeline, planning on circling around the grounds a few times. It’s a new experience, now, to explore with the knowledge of the journals.

Now he knows that the kennels and the stables had been expanded by various carpenters that had stayed for awhile. The saddlebags used by the horses were a gift from a merchant caravan, the curious vegetable garden made by a nature mage- the greenhouse surrounding the garden also made by her, on a later visit accompanied by her uncle and her best friend, an earth and fire mage respectively. It makes Victor chuckle, to think that so many mages that Yuuri has encountered were known to him, known to the entire continent as ones great and powerful.

He wonders if there’s any correlation between their reputation and their stay at Yuuri’s estate, but drops the thought upon coming across a series of tall, unnaturally placed stones. _These must be the graves,_ he realizes.

Victor approaches them carefully, snow crunching under his feet. Even Makkachin is more sedate.

There are a dozen in all, and each grave marker has a name roughly hewn on them, possibly by Yuuri himself. A plant grows in front of each one - Ji Guang-Hong’s has a stately willow on it, and Leo de Iglesia next to that grave has a lemon tree. A few of them are unmarked, each with yew trees all at similar points of growth.

Nikolai Plisetsky’s grave has a small rosebush, red buds curled tightly closed. It feels right to stand for a few moments in front of it, with his head bowed respectfully. “I wonder how your grandson turned out? A child raised by an immortal.” _I want to meet him someday, and ask what Yuuri was like as a parent._

There’s the sound of muffled footsteps behind him, and Makkachin jumps, barking wildly. “Now, now, Makkachin, don’t bark at Yuu-” Victor says as he turns around, only to see that what had been creeping up behind him is most definitely _not_ Yuuri.

The leopard from last night grins at him, haunches digging into the ground, and Victor turns around and takes off a dead sprint.

He hits the trees without thinking, but Makkachin’s barking makes him quickly realize that it’s a bad idea, leaves rustling above him. Victor changes course to head back to the mansion, back to the safety of Yuuri, but the leopard leaps in front of him and snarls, causing Victor to twist on his heel and continue through the woods.

Makkachin continues barking wildly, and Victor’s blood pumps in his ears, adrenaline filling his bones at the sound of something heavy landing on the trees above him. He barely dodges out of the way of another attack, the leopard leaping past him with its maw wide open, ready to rip his throat out.

Its eyes are bright green and venomous, and it’s constantly snarling at him, stalking intimidatingly every time that Victor slows his pace, leaping every time Victor stops running-

Its eyes are surprisingly intelligent.

A thought occurs to him — the “little leopard” that he had encountered in Metzrin — and this time Victor ducks under the next attack, lashing out with a kick as it passes by him. His foot lands solidly on its side, and the leopard is sent to the ground, barely landing on its feet, a promise of violence shimmering in its eyes. It stays between him and the manor, teeth bared, and feints to the left before lunging towards him once again.

This time, Victor tries for the manor again, but it blocks his way. The snarling gets louder, the intimidation fiercer, and Victor-

Victor laughs.

“You’re a shapeshifter, aren’t you?” he calls out, “ _You_ must be Yuri Plisetsky.”

The leopard freezes for a second, but that’s all the confirmation Victor needs. “Snow leopards are extremely rare in Blies,” he points out, “And Yuuri was surprised when I told him about you last night, but he believed me. And he said that he’d take care of the problem!”

It’s coming together faster now. “People on the Safir Plains are capable of using leopardskins to shapeshift in order to hunt for food easier, and one of the merchant caravans that Yuuri mentioned in his journals travels to there, so he must have bought it for you!”

The leopard hunches down, tail swishing, clearly about to attack him again, but Victor _knows_. “I saw you talking with Yuuko, and she said that you were a boy that runs errands for his father, and Yuuri can’t leave his estate, and I have no idea why you detest me so but-”

Victor is silenced by a hundred pounds of angry cat jumping at him, claws bared and barely missing his face, bouncing off a tree to pounce on Victor; claws are digging into his shoulders, and Victor hits the ground in pain, at the claws and the tree root that he landed on. “You’re Yuri Plisetsky, the boy that Yuuri took in,” Victor rasps to the leopard’s face. “You can’t hurt me or else Yuuri will-”

“ _YURI!_ ” the name bellows throughout the estate, and from the corner of his eye Victor can make out Yuuri running towards them, Makkachin at his heels. “ _YURI, GET OFF OF HIM!_ ” The leopard goes from angry to shamefaced in an instant, crawling off Victor and turning to to trees. “Stay right there and take off your leopardskin!” Yuuri demands, no longer yelling now that he was closer to the pair.

“Victor, are you okay?” he asks desperately, rushing to kneel at Victor’s side. He takes in the claw-marks with wide eyes, and reaches a hand to Victor’s cheek.

 _Oh, it got me,_ Victor realizes as Yuuri’s thumb wipes his cheek, blood smearing from a cut. “I’m okay,” is what he says though, and Yuuri stands up and hauls him to his feet before turning his gaze on the leopard.

Which is not a leopard anymore, but rather a sulky-looking youth with blond hair and green eyes wrapped in a leopardskin. An ugly bruise crawls up the left side of his face, and he’s clutching his side, where Victor had kicked the leopard.

Yuri Plisetsky is stone-faced and sullen as he stands up, fists clenched and hands trembling as he dips his head to Yuuri.

Yuuri stares at both of them before sighing deeply. “Back to the house, both of you. I’m going to get the medical kit,” he says. “Victor do you need help?” he asks before trudging back.

Victor rolls his shoulders experimentally, and winces. “I should be good, but I need some treatment.” The claws had dug into his skin a bit, piercing holes in his coat and shirts.

Yuuri bites his lip before nodding and heading back to the mansion, leaving Victor and Yuri to go back on their own. Victor threads a head through Makkachin’s fur to ground himself as he follows.

“I hate you,” the little Yuri spits, tugging his cloak tightly around himself as he passes Victor.

The vehemence in the statement surprises Victor. “What did I ever do to you?” he challenges.

He gets no reply.

* * *

“I’m disappointed in you,” Papa says once they’ve all sat down around the fireplace, mugs of hot cocoa in hand and Victor’s have been wounds treated, healing paste applied to Yuri’s face and ribs.

Yuri scoffs, and turns to avoid his father’s gaze.

“Yuri,” Papa says sharply, reprimand in his voice. “We talked about this last night.” Victor makes a noise of wonderment.

Yuri scowls and pins the guest with his worst glare. “I’m sorry,” he snarls. “I didn’t really try to kill you, I just want you to go away.”

Silence. Papa holds his hand out. “Leopardskin, Yurohchka,” he says. “We talked last night, and I’m very, very disappointed in you right now.”

“Papa-”

“Victor is a guest and he hasn’t violated any of my rules,” Papa reminds him. “And you did not give a proper apology, Yurohchka.”  

Rage festers like a wound. “I’m _sorry_ ,” he snarls, staring at the guest, ripping off his cloak and casting it on the chair. “I’m going to bed now, Papa.”

“Yuri, huh?” the guest says as Yuri heads for the stairs. “Doesn’t it get confusing? Both of your names sound the same.” Yuri pauses in confusion, at the lack of anger on the guest’s part, and chances a look at him. Silver hair hiding one eye (like a shady person, his mind supplies) and his eyes are a really annoying shade of blue, like the summer sky on bright mornings that Yuri hates waking up to.

“What’s it to you?” Yuri snaps. “It’s not like you’re staying long enough for it for inconvenience you.”

“But I want to stay for awhile,” the guest says, smiling. Yuri wants to punch it off his face.

“Well you’re _not_ -”

“Yuri,” Papa’s voice cuts into the argument swiftly. “Victor may stay if he wants to, and if he gives me an appropriate gift. Do not be rude to him, please. Has he done something to you?”

 _He’s turning you against me,_ Yuri wants to scream. “No,” he says instead, “It’s just that he looks like some creepy old man with that bald spot of his and weird grey hair.”

The guest sputters indignantly, and Papa gapes in disbelief, and Yuri takes that opportunity to walk back to his room as fast as possible. He clenches his fists so hard that crescents are left in his palm, and Yuri changes into his sleeping-clothes as quickly as possible.

“Both of your names sound the same,” he remembers the guest saying. The words burn in Yuri’s brain _. Is there something wrong with that?_

While Papa has asked him if he wanted a different name many times before, Yuri always refuses. He likes to think that their names tie them together where blood does not. Likes to think that he carries a piece of Papa in his name.

On some mornings, Yuri dreams wistfully about a world where his name had actually come from Yuuri’s.

* * *

“I’m sorry,” is all Yuuri can’t think of saying. He stares at the cloak that Yurohchka left behind in his whirlwind of anger. “I don’t know what’s gotten into him. He normally doesn’t get along with the guests, but it’s the first time that...”

“That he’s attacked one?” Victor fills in.

“Yes.” Yuuri pauses, uncertain whether to continue, but for someone who had just been nearly mauled by an angry leopard, Victor’s body language remains calm, open. “Is there any way I can make it up to you?”

Victor ponders for a moment before patting the spot next to himself. “Come sit closer here!” he says, “And tell me about yourself.”

Yuuri can’t help but raise an eyebrow at that, gingerly moving to sit next to Victor. He left some space between them, uncomfortable to the closeness, but Victor frowns. “What do you want to hear?” Yuuri asks.

Suddenly there is a weight in his lap. “Anything you’ll be willing to tell me!” Victor replies, staring up at him and grinning from his new position draped on the couch and on Yuuri’s lap. Yuuri can’t help the flustered squeak that flies out of his throat.

“What-”

“I’m an injured man,” Victor says, practically pouting. “And your lap is more comfortable than the couch. Do I have to move?”

A million different thoughts fly through Yuuri’s head as he stares down at Victor, and Victor’s smile, and the way bandages have been applied to his shoulders. His relaxed posture, the fact that he’s _read through Yuuri’s journals_ and is still behaving like an over-affectionate poodle. Yuuri doesn’t know exactly which ones Victor read, but he does vaguely remember what he’s written, and it’s... strange. To be treated like a person, still.

So Yuuri doesn’t tell him to move, merely letting his hands fall to his lap as he musters up centuries of practice hiding his feelings to smile down at Victor. “I don’t know how to rid myself of my immortality,” he says.

“Oh?”

A memory is summoned to the forefront of Yuuri’s mind, unbidden. “I know that my immortality has to do with my estate, though. A time mage came by centuries ago, to study here for the sake of peace and quiet and possibly hiding from his guild.”

“Celestino?” Victor asks.

Yuuri hums. “That might have been his name, yes. It was a very long time ago.” He looks away from Victor and his impossibly blue eyes to watch the dancing flames of the fireplace, idly carding his hand through something soft. “He told me that my entire estate is removed from time. My horses will never age, nor my dogs. Everything that existed on the estate at the time this whole... thing started, is under the same curse as I.”

“But the animals can leave,” Victor says.

“They can,” Yuuri sighs, and stills his hand. “I don’t know why; the time mage said that they’re tethered to me. As long as I am immortal, they are too. But things that do not belong to this estate will age, like food.”

Victor makes a discontented sound, and a hand covers Yuuri’s and tugs it through something soft. He looks down, and his mask of calm shatters upon realizing- “Oh- I’m sorry-”

“No, no, continue,” Victor says insistently, “Continue talking, and doing this. I don’t mind it.”

Yuuri takes a shuddering breath, going back to looking at anywhere other than Victor, whose hair he had been playing with like an utter fool. He hopes that Victor can’t see his blush from this angle. _His hair is very nice,_ Yuuri allows himself to think for a moment. “I... don’t know what you want me to talk about. There’s nothing interesting about a man who’s been frozen in time.”

“I think differently,” Victor rebuts. Then, in a softer voice, “Do you remember your family?”

Yuuri can’t help but look up to the covered painting in the middle of the stairs. “I try not to,” he hears himself say, something old and fragile cracking in his heart. “It’s best to not.”

“You miss them.”

“Of course I do.” He barely remembers them, anymore — their memories are like ghosts, transparent and flickering and barely-there. His mother’s smile, sometimes when he’s cooking. The smoke of his sister’s tobacco, when he walks to the kennels. His father’s warm expressions, when he sits in the study. “They died before I became immortal, I think.”

Victor shifts in his lap. “You think?”

Yuuri laughs dryly. “It’s been a very long time, Victor. I don’t remember their passing.” But he does remember fire, and the march of soldiers’ boots, his mother’s screaming.

For a while, there’s silence as Victor ruminates and Yuuri stares at the fire, playing with Victor’s hair in some strange imitation of domesticity. “Tell me about your son. The other Yuri,” Victor says eventually. “I never saw him around the estate before.”

“I love him very much.” The easiest thing to say about Yurohchka. Remembering the scene in the forest, though... “He can be a bit of a handful sometimes. He doesn’t like guests, usually, and stays out of sight as much as possible, unless they plan to stay for a long time. That’s why you weren’t allowed in the kitchen or the West Wing,” he explains. “You would have seen him.”

“Do you know why he hates me?” Victor’s voice is so very quiet, the words mumbled into Yuuri’s thigh like a lover asking the answer to a dreaded secret.

Yuuri’s heart stutters, and he pulls his hand away from Victor’s hair. “I... I’m sorry about-”

“So you don’t know?” Victor cuts in.

“I don’t.”

Yuuri’s heart feels heavy, and he closes his eyes to card his hand through Victor’s hair one last time, before the beautiful traveller decides that he is unwelcome, and should leave, because of Yurohchka’s hostility.

“Can I stay anyways? I’ve been planning your gift for it, but if he thinks I don’t belong here...”

Yuuri barely controls his knee-jerk response, mindful of Victor’s head on his lap. “You want to stay?” he asks, unable to process the words. “Still?” He chances a look downwards.

“As long as you’ll allow me to,” Victor says, and his smile is faintly heart-shaped as he kisses one of Yuuri’s thighs. He laughs when Yuuri squeaks. “You’re adorable.”

“I- what?” Yuuri knows that he’s beetroot red, and the room feels warmer than usual all of a sudden.

“You’re adorable, I said.” And suddenly, Victor is sitting up, twisting so that his mouth speaks hotly of Yuuri’s ear. “Everyone called you mysterious, or lonely, so I was completely unprepared for how cute you are.”

 _Is he flirting with me?!_ Victor’s hand has somehow found its way to Yuuri’s thigh. _Oh my god he is-_

“What are you doing?” Yuuri injects as much composure into his voice as humanly possible.

Victor draws back, and the light from the fireplace makes him seem to glow at the edges, silver hair tinging with warm colors from the flames, eyes dark with something that, even after centuries, makes Yuuri’s heart quaver. “So it seems that I don’t need to embody eros to seduce you,” he says cheerfully, even though his face is still shadowed. “You’re the most interesting person I’ve ever met, Yuuri, immortal or not. Is it so bad that I want to get to know you better?”

For a moment-

For that moment, Yuuri forgets that Victor will leave someday, to travel to other places, and he lets his masks fall as Victor takes his hand in a kiss and presses him into the couch.

Forgets his mantra of everyone leaves, and doesn’t push Victor away when he looks at him with his eyes half-mast, intent clear on his face.

“Is this okay?” Victor murmurs into the crook of his neck, lips pressed to taste Yuuri’s pulse.

Yuuri forgets everything for that moment, and whispers, “Yes.”

Everything is dark after that, from Victor looming over him and Yuuri arching up so that their bodies are flush together, “How?” he whispers, right before Victor presses their lips together, soft and and warm and _present_.

“How what?” Victor asks after they disconnect, before leaning in again. His hand goes up to cradle Yuuri’s head, and Yuuri finds himself tugging at Victor’s shirt to ground himself from the unfamiliar sensation.

Yuuri gasps to compose himself several kisses afterwards, Victor tugging at his hair a little to expose his neck, tracing the curve of his Adam’s apple with his tongue and lips. “How can you- treat me like a normal person.”

Victor chuckles, and this close together Yuuri feels it rather than hears it, a rumble in his chest that transfers to Yuuri’s hands. “Because we’re the same, Yuuri,” he bites an earlobe, and Yuuri’s mouth involuntarily lets out a whimper.

“The same?”

“We’re both lonely, and...” Victor murmurs, pulling away slightly to gaze down at Yuuri, shifting his legs so that he’s straddling him. “How can I treat you any differently?”

Yuuri stares back up at him for a moment. “I like that answer,” he says as he pulls Victor back towards him.

Forgetting has never been so sweet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WE'RE FINALLY GETTING SOMEWHERE *looks up at the rating* should I change it? 
> 
> 1\. Yuuri figured that Yuri was pissed bc Yuuri normally doesn't spend so much time with guests, so he told Victor he was busy so he could spend time with his son. Also, they were cooking in the kitchen together, hence the mess and Victor not being allowed in. 
> 
> 2\. Yuuri started keeping journals because one merchant had a bunch of blank books that he decided to take as payment for letting them stay. Someone suggested that he write to occupy his time, and it's been kind of therapeutic for him. Also, he's 675, not 652, because he was 23 when it kicked in. 
> 
> 3\. How did Victor know that Yuuri kept journals? Lucky guess. 
> 
> 4\. Yuri sort of has cat-senses from being a leopard-shifter, which is part of the reason he's so hostile to Victor. :3c
> 
> 5\. *bangs fist on table* Yuuri keeps pushing people away!! But he's lonely!! It's a vicious cycle!! He reads really fast into any clue that person wants to leave, and never convinces them to stay. This is one of the reasons he and Yuri are a bit at odds right now, because he's subconsciously pushing Yuri away and Yuri hates it. 
> 
> 6\. Last scene- Yuuri is super weak to intimacy, he fucking craves it, so when Victor offers it to him even after reading Yuuri's journals which are filled with his most personal thoughts, treats Yuuri the same as usual, Yuuri manages to forget his usual reaction to intimacy (pushing people away) and decides to reciprocate instead.
> 
> 7\. How the fuck do you write kiss scenes. 
> 
> Hope you all enjoyed!!


	5. story that makes no sense

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> :)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ohmygod it's here. it's here!!!!! you don't know how excited I am to deliver this chapter to you. on one hand I'm so glad to share this bit with you, on the other hand I hated writing it because it felt like scraping nails against blackboard at some points. Thank you to [belsefar](http://archiveofourown.org/users/belsefar/pseuds/belsefar) , [Fauks](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Fauks/pseuds/Fauks), [exocara](http://archiveofourown.org/users/exocara/pseuds/Vitali), and [Jack_R](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Jack_R/pseuds/Jack_R) for putting up with my various complaints. (Check out their stories if you haven't before!!! They're great writers!!!) 
> 
> This chapter is split into two parts. I would recommend briefly taking a break when you reach the second lyric line, for various reasons. 
> 
> While I'm pissed at myself for not updating for over a month, it's finally done, so :) enjoy.
> 
> (There is a fight scene, but it's not really graphic, I think. I ran it past some other people, and they said that I didn't need to add any warnings. But here's your warning.)

_Questa storia che senso non ha / This story that makes no sense_

 

The strains of a violin fill the air of the mansion.

Yuuri sits in rapt attention as Victor’s fingers, splayed on the bow, draw back and forth in measured strokes on the instrument, while a humming melody from his mouth at the same time. It’s short — only just over a minute long, but the song itself is...

Wistful. Yuuri’s heart aches as he watches Victor’s body mirror the draw of his bow, the calculated press of strings, cutting a lonesome figure in the Lavender Room. The sun pours in behind him, casting him in a deep silhouette of a violinist in the middle of his performance, the music resonating so deeply that Yuuri feels like it is a song that he has heard for the past six hundred years.

It’s only just a little over a minute long in this incomplete state that Victor has insisted on showing Yuuri. Victor mouths words as he plays the violin tucked under his chin, his eyes lost in refining the timing of his bow. Yuuri can’t make out the lyrics, but Victor’s expression is so vulnerable that he almost doesn’t want to know.

Between the creaks of wood in Victor’s fingers and his expression and the melody winding through the room, Yuuri feels strangely pleased, but also somewhat discomfited. The song is for him, composed about him. It’s beautiful and original and unique - yet the way Victor plays it is like he’s putting his whole being on display for Yuuri to see, explicitly for Yuuri to hear. It’s the equivalent of Victor baring his heart to Yuuri without a second thought, without Yuuri’s prompting, and that sort of closeness makes something in Yuuri’s own heart twist.

“So what do you think?” Victor asks, pausing his playing. He rests his violin on the table, puts his bow next to it, rubbing his knuckles. Part of Yuuri wants to reach out to him and ask him if he can help soothe the ache, but he grabs the thought and tamps it down behind a benign smile.

“I thought it was beautiful,” Yuuri says.

“It’s not complete, unfortunately, but perhaps over the duration of my stay I will be able to finish it.” Victor’s angle is obvious, his eyes pleading.

Yuuri hums in mock contemplation, though he’d already decided last night what his response to any gift Victor could offer would be. The song is beautiful, and Yuuri wants to hear it in full completion someday. “I don’t know...”

“Not even after what happened last night?” Victor smiles, mouth heart-shaped and eyes closed.

Unbidden, a blush rises on Yuuri’s cheeks. He averts his eyes. “I would have said yes to anything you had offered me,” he deflects. “And not because of what happened last night. I find your company...” he closed his eyes, searching for the right word, “I enjoy your company. I wish for you to stay until you wish to leave.”  

Victor taps his finger to his lips, a gesture that Yuuri knew as one of deep thought. “What if I never wish to leave?” he asks, cocking his hip.

At those words, any pleasant mood that Yuuri has because of the music (because of _Victor_ ) twists into a thin knife and lodges itself right under his heart. He smiles a practiced smile, and turns away, gripping the arms of his chair slightly. “We’ll see about that,” Yuuri says. He stands up. “Thank you Victor, for the song. It is lovely, but it’s high time that I call Yurochka for a late lunch.”

He stalks out of the room with his muscles tight, mind still reeling at Victor’s careless words. _Never want to leave?_ He scoffs to himself. _Impossible._

_Everyone leaves._

An immortal and a man who wants to stay with him forever? That kind of story makes no sense.

* * *

 “That could have gone better,” Victor says to Makkachin. He glances at the door that Yuuri had left through, remembering how quickly the man had shut down. He crouches down to tug Makkachin closer; the poodle whines and licks his nose. “I didn’t think he would react like _that_.”

Especially after last night; Victor remembers the softness of Yuuri’s lips under his own, the way his eyes had looked, darkened with pleasure, his voice gasping Victor’s name without any composure. They hadn’t done anything other than kiss and grind against each other. Yuuri had been the one to stop first, pressing feather-light kisses on Victor’s shoulder and soothing him with his voice until their arousals had calmed. “No more.” Yuuri’s whisper still haunts Victor’s mind. “This is wonderful, but please — no more.”

That had been that.

Victor gives Makkachin several more indulgent scratches before putting his violin away. Outside the sun shines, but snow falls gently, winter having finally arrived to the region with all her being.

He looks out the window. From here, he can see a fair portion of the estate, including the copse of graves and a frozen-over pond. He squints at the figure there, the bright yellow hair tipping him off that Yuuri’s son is the one out there, skating on the ice in idle circles, cutting patterns into the pond. Victor remembers the acid green of the youth’s eyes yesterday, Yuuri’s sudden reticence after allowing him to stay and makes a decision.

He rummages through his luggage for his own pair of skates, and heads out.

* * *

 “May I join you?” a voice breaks Yuri from his reverie, and he instinctively scowls at the person at the edge of the pond.

“We don’t have extra skates,” Yuri snaps, ignoring the silver-haired man and focusing on the ice.

“I have my own.”

“Hah?” Yuri looks up and can’t help but be surprised as the man steps onto the ice, skating shoes laced up. He’s balanced and moves with an assured grace. “What kind of traveler carries skating shoes around?” Yuri asks doubtfully.

The man does a complicated-looking turn. “The kind that’s been around everywhere!” he says. “They’re dreadfully useful for travelling around the North, you know?”

“You _skate_ to places?” Yuri can’t believe his ears.

He shrugs. “Safer and faster than walking across frozen bodies of water. I really don’t see why not to.”

“You-” Yuri bites his tongue to silence himself, and skates to the other end of the pond. _You’re crazy_ , he wants to say, but at the same time he doesn’t want to interact with the stranger at all. He’d woken up to violin music, and he knows that Papa would have accepted that as a gift — even though its intangible, _worthless_. What good is music that only exists in memories?

Even if the stranger is staying, that doesn’t mean Yuri has to like him. He carefully doesn’t look in that direction, focusing on the feeling of the ice under his blades, the singing of metal and frozen water. He’ll ignore the guest until he _leaves_ if he has to.

Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like the odd man himself has gotten the memo that Yuri wants absolutely nothing to do with him. "Is there anything I can do for you?" he asks, skating near Yuri.

"You can go away," Yuri snaps, unable to hold his tongue out of vitriol. To his credit, the guy doesn't balk.

"Is there anything I can do that would endear myself to you, Yuri?" he clarifies. "I'm definitely not leaving."

"Ha?" A spray of ice goes through the air as Yuri scrapes his blades and skids to a stop. "What are you talking about, weirdo?"

There's no change in expression. "I'm going to be staying here," he says, "I'd like to get along with you, Yuri."

Yuri can't help his sneer. "What's it to you?" he demands. "Just ignore me, and I'll ignore you, and we can go on with no problem, got that? No need to worry about endearing yourself to me or any of that shit." He makes to skate away, but-

"I want to get along with you," Victor says quietly, his eyes serious. "If at least because I am to be staying here a while, and this is your home."

"You only care about Papa," Yuri spits. "Don't worry, I don't want you to care about me."

Victor frowns. Yuri can't tell why. "True, I'm here because of your father, but he cares about you very much. I... I have strong feelings for him, but they pale in comparison to what he has for you, so I want to get along with you. Besides, I've done nothing wrong. Why do you hate me so much?"

Yuri bristles immediately. "Nothing wrong?" he snarls, digging his toe pick into the ice, "You being here is wrong."

"Why?" Vi- the weirdo is still calm. Then, an annoying smile crawls over his face. “Oh, are you scared that I’m stealing Yuuri away from you, Yuri?” There’s barely a pause before he continues, “Yuri, Yuuri, your names sound too similar. Should I call you something different? Yura? Yuriy? Oh, what about Yurio-”

Yuri lunges, for him, hands going for the throat - “ _Shut up!”_

— But Victor dodges, laughing merrily. “That’s not a happy face!”

“What is _wrong_ with you?!” Yuri screeches, fury unbridled now, chasing the man around the pond, his blades shrieking with his anger. “Do you not know when to shut up, old man? I hate people like you!” He manages to snag Victor’s jacket and _yank_. The smack of Victor’s back against the ice is deeply satisfying.

Victor’s laugh falls off his face, and that is satisfying as well. “People like me, Yura?” he asks, “What do people like me do?”

Yuri senses the tension shift to something he can’t put his finger on. But Victor’s face is serious, strangely so, and if Yuri was in leopard form right now he’d have his hackles raised. Something about Victor feels _wrong_ , all his instincts scream it. “People like you waltz in and make merry with Papa, but then you leave and Papa gets _sad_ every time and I’m the one that sees it! He doesn’t _tell me_ but I see it!” he crouches down to jab a finger in the weirdo’s face. “All of you are pieces of shit- don’t deserve to stay.”

He gets up and heads for the edge of the pond, intent on going back indoors now that he’s made his damn point. “I’m not like them,” the weirdo calls.

“Bullshit!” Yuri shoots back.

There’s a hand on his shoulder, and he smacks it away, but weirdo isn’t offended. “Is there any way I can prove it?” weirdo says, and there’s... something _earnest_ in his voice.

Yuri would love to chase him away from the house, make him regret ever starting Papa on the road to sadness again, but... weirdo is to first in a long time to approach him like this. Ever. Most guests don’t know how to interact with Yuri, avoid him or just see him as an extension of Papa, and that’s always chafed down any respect he has for those that visit. But here wei- _Victor_ is, asking for his opinion. “No,” Yuri answers with finality. He turns to look at Victor. “Nothing you can do to prove it. Only time will tell.”

Victor remains serious. “Nothing at all?”

Yuri... hesitates, looks at his home where Papa is waiting for him. Them? “You can answer some questions,” Yuri decides to say. He glances at Victor. “I don’t trust you to not break Papa’s heart. But if you want me to tolerate you, answer me.” He narrows his eyes, cat-slit thin, “I’ll know if you lie or not.”

Unlike many before him, Victor doesn’t laugh. “Instincts from shifting with a leopardskin so long, right?” his head is tilted slightly to the side. “Okay. Ask away, Yura!”

Yuri bristles at the nickname, but doesn’t let it stall him. “How did you hear about Papa in the first place?”

“Metzrin town.” Victor smiles wryly, “They kept telling me not to come here, and I’ve always been terrible at following orders.”

Yuri scoffs. “They’re all fools,” he mutters, “So, why do you care so much?”

Victor blinks. “What?”

“You heard me,” Yuri snaps, regaining his vitriol. “I’ve seen how you are with Papa. You want to get close to him — you asked to see his inner library. You read his journals. No one reads Papa’s journals.”

“How did you know that?”

“Papa told me that you were in the inner library, and I checked for myself later. Journals weren’t dusty anymore.”

A pause. “I think Yuuri and I are quite alike,” Victor says. “I just want to get to know him better. Is that such a crime?”

There was something _off_ about that line. “You’re hiding something,” Yuri growls, and his hand twitches to grab Victor’s collar to interrogate him. “I don’t like that.”

Victor shrugs. “Let me keep my secrets.” His voice is curt.

Yuri can’t help the way his mouth twists into a snarl, a growl coming out from deep in his chest. “You said ask away, don’t take your words back now!”

“Fine. You can have one more question,” Victor bites out the words, tight-lipped.

“How old are you, and where are you from?” Yuri had of heard neither from Papa. “Papa says you’ve traveled all around the continent, but you’re way too young for that.”

Victor stares at him, blue eyes as companionable as sharp icicles in freezing winter. He smiles. It’s not a kind smile. “That’s two questions.”

Yuri’s ears prick at footsteps approaching. Judging from Victor’s face though, he hasn’t noticed. “Two basic questions. Is there a reason why you can’t say?”

“I’m from...” Victor falls silent for a moment. “... Arus.”

“Yurochka? Victor?” a voice interrupts. Yuri doesn’t bother turning around. “What’s going on?”

“Yuuri!” Victor cries, seriousness turning to excitement in an instant and _throws himself at Papa_. Yuri draws back to watch, trying to keep the ball of resentment in his chest from lashing out. They land in the snow with an _whumpf_ , Victor laughing and Papa’s expression of stunned shock turning into laughter as well.

“What on earth was that for?” Papa laughs as Victor gets up and pulls him to his feet.

Victor just grins, brushing snow off of himself. “I was just happy to see you!”

Something rises up in the back of Yuri’s mind, watching them like this. Victor is... lively around Papa. Inordinately joyous. And Papa... reciprocates the joy, and touches, in kind. It’s bizarre, unlike any other guest — for Papa to become this open with someone would take at least three months. “Papa, is it lunchtime?” Yuri cuts in on their laughter, snagging his father’s sleeve and looking up beseechingly.

“It is.” Papa’s laughter fades. “I... is everything alright, though?” he looks between him and Victor nervously, and Yuri lets his wariness abate further.

“Everything’s fine,” he says before Victor can say anything. “Let’s go in.”

Papa smiles at him. “I’m glad to hear that, Yurochka,” and his voice is so painfully happy that Yuri for a second, regrets attacking Victor the night before. Papa starts walking back first, saying something about how hopefully the food wouldn’t be cold yet, but Yuri lingers to walk in line with Victor.

“... When you make Papa sad, I’ll make you regret it,” Yuri says, not looking at the man.

“Shouldn’t that be an ‘if’, not a when?”

“Don’t give yourself too much credit.”

In the many years that he’s lived with Papa, Yuri knows that no one stays forever. Leaving is an inevitability, even for himself. Yuri will leave Papa through death, though. Everyone else may walk away, from Yuuri Katsuki, but Yuri will never.

So for now, he’ll let Victor into their home. “You make Papa laugh,” Yuri mutters. “So I guess you’re not too bad.”

“Did you say something?”

“Nothing.”

(That lunch is the first meal that all three of them eat together. Somehow, it’s not as awkward as most first meals go, so Yuri counts it as a win.)

* * *

 The dynamic amongst the three of them is one that is hard to stabilize. But it does stabilize, over time.

Yuuri and Yuri are father and son. For several years, Yuuri has raised Yuri, watched him sprout through puberty, taken care of him when ill, fed and clothed and done all the things he remembers his own mother doing for himself over six hundred years ago. Usually, they are easy around each other; interactions laced with eight years of familiarity.

However, the occurrence of Victor’s presence throws them off, because now they must calculate for a third presence during the day. But Victor is gracious, doesn’t try to carve himself a space between them. He fits himself next to Yuuri instead, because Yuri would sooner scratch Victor’s eyes out than sit next to him on the couch. And that’s okay, because —

Yuri and Victor are... friends is too amicable of a word for them. But Victor is kind to Yuri, doesn’t brush him off whenever Yuri tells him that he’s a disaster in the kitchen, or that he reeks and needs to take a bath; “-it’s a miracle that Papa can stand your smell.” Smiles indulgently at Yuri’s hisses and spitfire tongue, jabs back at him in kind — never backs down from a verbal spar, and acquiesces that Yuri knows more about Yuuri than Victor does.

Victor knows that Yuri distrusts him, and doesn’t try to annoyingly ingratiate himself to Yuri. He’s straightforward through his secrets. In turn, Yuri keeps his hostility away; he watches, still, but he will let Victor have his secrets. His instincts tell him that Victor is strange, still, but as long as those secrets don’t harm Papa, then they can stay secret.

Victor and Yuuri are guest and host.

 _Guest and host_ , Yuuri tells himself, even when Victor is a comfortable weight on his side, Yuuri’s head in the crook of Victor’s neck, listening to Victor’s smooth voice detailing his time in the Nocturne Treesea while Yuri plays with cats as a leopard.

 _Guest and host_ , Yuuri insists in his mind every morning when Victor greets him with a welcoming hug. Victor’s hugs are lovely, the breadth of his shoulders wide enough that all of his hugs make Yuuri feel like he fits in his arms. They’re warm and freely given and Yuuri’s immortal heart beats just the slightest bit faster; Yuuri’s arms snake around Victor’s waist in kind. Letting go makes a part of Yuuri’s heart ache for some strange reason.

(He doesn’t think too much about it.) (He tries to, anyway.)

 _Guest and host_. Yuuri hangs onto the words like a lifeline as Yurochka yells in response to one of Victor’s jabs, all of them eating dinner. Victor’s clothes are casual and uncoordinated unlike the first days of his stay, while Yuri isn’t caring that Victor is laughing at him or the mashed potatoes on his mouth. (Victor passes a napkin to Yurochka the same time Yuuri does, and when they look at each other _oh,_ Yuuri’s heart stutters.)

Few guests care about Yurochka like that; they dismiss him because of his harsh voice and his coarse reception, or they attempt to coddle him. But Victor treats him like the young man he is growing into, follows Yuuri’s cues, and sometimes, it feels like they’re a family. Yuuri and Yuri together alone have been family, but the addition of Victor makes it feel... a little more whole.

A little less lonely.

* * *

 A month into Victor’s stay, Yuuko comes by with Axel, Lutz, and Loop while her husband stays back to take care of the inn. “Yuuri!” she greets him with a hug on the front steps of the estate, her daughters swarming Yuri with hugs as well. Victor watches curiously from the doorway.

“Hello, Yuuko,” Yuuri returns the greeting, and the hug, and his eyes are unmistakably fond. “How are you doing?”

“Oh, same as usual, you know.” She breaks away from the hug upon glimpsing Victor. “Is that your new guest?”

“Oh, yes!” He ushers everyone inside, as the evening air is bitingly chill. “This is Victor.”

Victor bows, “It’s-”

He’s on the ground in seconds, cheek smarting from Yuuko’s blow. “We know each other,” Yuuko says frostily over Yuuri’s shock. “I told you about Yuuri, but not so that you could come and pester him, traveller!”

“I suppose I had that coming,” Victor says, clutching his face. “It’s nice to see you again, Mrs. Nishigori.”

“Why’d you punch him?” Yuri, Axel, Lutz, and Loop ask, voices chiming together.

Yuuri kneels down to help him. “Yuuko, please don’t assault Victor. What did he do?”

Yuuko crosses her arms and looks at Victor. Even though she is shorter, her irritation makes it feel like she’s looking down at him rather than up. “... You better not have been making any trouble for Yuuri,” she says finally. She marches towards the kitchen. “So, what will we have for dinner?”

Dinner is... a variety of dishes, cooked by Yuuko and Yuuri. Victor listens most of the time, to Yuuko updating Yuuri on life in Metzrin and the triplets regaling Yuri with funny things they’ve seen. “He’s like really loud, Yura!” Loop cries, spreading her arms out. “Really loud! He’s got a bunch of people with him too, a proper entourage.”

“What’s nobility like that doing all the way in Metzrin?” Yuri wonders. They have no clue.

Yuuko and her children leave later in the night, when the stars are already up, astride four of Yuuri’s horses and two dogs accompanying them for safety, so they can return faster.

“What is Yuuko to you?” Victor asks, later. They’re cleaning up the aftermath of the dinner, and he had insisted on helping.

(Yuri quietly appreciates that Victor lifts his weight, unlike many other guests.)

Yuuri hums a little. “... A niece?” he says the word, but it doesn’t sound quite right, so he frowns. “She’s like family, but not very close.”

“Not a friend?”

He laughs. “She’s too young for that, Victor. I’ve known her since she was a child.”

It’s a strange thought, that Yuuri views Yuuko and Yuri almost equally in terms of their age compared to his, and him knowing them for so long. “Are the triplets grandchildren, then?” Victor asks.

“Sounds about right.”

They work in silence, and have shifted to the kitchen to wash dishes by the time Victor opens his mouth again. “What do you want me to be you, Yuuri?” His sleeves are rolled up and he’s elbow-deep in soapsuds, but that’s not enough to stop him from asking it.

Yuuri stares at him like he’s spoken some foreign tongue. “What do you mean?”

“A father figure? A brother?”

He laughs a little at both. “You’re much too young to be either, even if your hair is grey.”

Victor takes a moment to pretend to be offended, putting a wet hand to his chest. “It’s silver, Yuuri!” Yuuri just giggles, and Victor can’t help but smile at the sound. “A friend? Or do you just want me to be your guest?”

Yuuri’s laughter tapers off, and he makes a discontented sound. “I...”

“A lover?” Victor keeps his voice even, suggests it as if he were offering a cup of tea. Yuuri pauses. “I’ll try my best then.”

“What? No!” Yuuri exclaims, and a flower of some kind of hope wilts in Victor’s chest. Water splashes a little as Yuuri jerks around to look at him. “You... you don’t have to be anything like that to me, Victor,” he cries. “Just... be yourself.”

“Be myself?” Victor echoes.

Yuuri nods furiously. (And oh, the flower of hope blooms again because there is no noble composure here, no Immortal Lord Yuuri Katsuki. It’s just _Yuuri_.) “I... if you were any of the other things, I-” his voice breaks off a little, and his face softens, voice quietens, “I just want you as you are. As long as you’ll stay here.”

“... I can do that,” Victor murmurs.

On a whim, he leans forward to brush his lips against Yuuri’s forehead. Yuuri stills, staring at him wide-eyed, but says nothing.

When they part that night, it is with another forehead-kiss, and Yuuri’s very faint, “Good night, Victor.”

* * *

 

_Svanirà questa notte assieme alle stelle / Will vanish tonight along with the stars_

 

The day after Yuuko’s visit, they’re in the study when the knock comes. Yurochka’s questions about Victor’s time in the Safir Plains with other leopard-shifters are cut off by the noise that echoes heavily throughout the mansion. Yuuri frowns, looking up from the journal he’d been writing in.

“I think I have more visitors,” he says. For some reason his usual excitement at company doesn’t manifest. “It’s quite late for it, though.”

Yurochka looks at him, a little surprised, but doesn’t say anything. “I’m going to go to my room then, Papa.” He pauses on the way out, though. “Hey Victor, tell me more when the new people are gone.”

“Okay,” Victor agrees. It fills Yuuri’s heart with something indescribable, the way that Victor and his son interact, and he can’t help but smile.

“Do you want to meet the new guests with me, Victor?” It’s not unusual for new guests to come while he’s hosting others, but it doesn’t happen that often, either. Though that may just be his memory of more than six hundred years of visitors blurring together.

“I’m fine.” Victor gets up from the couch and stretches. “I don’t-” there are more knocks, and he scoffs a little. “They seem impatient. Why can we hear the knocks from here?”

“Magic channels sound from there to the rest of the building. That way I can know whenever someone is at my door.” Yuuri loops his arm around Victor’s as they leave the study out of habit. Somehow, Victor has made him... acclimatized to physical contact. It helps that Victor gives perfect hugs. (Suddenly, he’s glad that the lighting of the corridor is dim — it hides his blush at the memory of Victor’s hugs.)

“Goodnight, Victor,” Yuuri says before they part, Victor to his bedroom, Yuuri to his own to change quickly before receiving guests. Knocks ring a third time, but Yuuri ignores them.

“I’ll see you in the morning,” Victor murmurs, and darts forward to kiss Yuuri’s forehead, as he’s made a habit of doing for several days now. Yuuri watches him fondly as he leaves before going to change.

In a way, he’s glad that Victor agreed to not accompany him. Yuuri closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, summoning the immortal lord veneer that people expect then they come to him. When people come to an estate in the middle of the forest, far off the beaten track, they don’t want to meet a man who has lived too long — they want a courteous host full of graceful mystery.

(Victor doesn’t want that, never balks when Yuuri laughs or grumbles like a normal person. When he’s around, Yuuri doesn’t need to wear that mask — so it’s good that he’s greeting them alone.)

“Hello, travellers,” he greets, opening the door after flicking on an outside magelight. Yuuri raises his eyebrow at the group camped out on his steps; at least a dozen men are are, all but one clearly wearing armor and carrying some kind of weapon. He doesn’t let his surprise show. “What brings you here?”

The only man not wearing armor rises up. He wears undoubtedly expensive clothes, judging by how he isn’t shivering and the vibrant colouring of the fabric. “Are you the immortal lord?” he asks.

“Who asks?”

“Davis, servant of the House Leroy.”

Yuuri lets his expression fall into practiced disdain. “Am I expected to hold any value to that name?” he drawls. He really doesn’t. For all he knows, it’s some minor nobility from Blies, or some other country that he's never been to.

The man scowls a bit. “Just let us in, sir. It’s cold.” He steps up towards Yuuri, but Yuuri doesn’t move from the doorway, gauging the tension in the shoulders of the rest of the group.

“Have you no manners?” Yuuri asks, even though Davis is looming above him. “State your business.” He lets irritation leak into his voice.

Davis’ stares down at him for several long seconds before switching tactics. “Could you let us in, good sir?” he pleas, “It’s quite cold, and my business can wait until morning.”

Yuuri hears someone spit. “Just stab him and get over with.” There’s a smacking sound. Davis’ expression doesn’t change except for a small downturn of his lips.

“I see. Then...” Yuuri doesn’t betray that he heard those words, or that he knows Davis. Men like Davis, that is. “Your business can wait a few more minutes, then. Let me prepare some rooms for you and your men.” He slams the door shut in Davis’ face, locks and bars it for good measure.

(Not all travellers are simply looking for a place to stay.)

He hears swearing and the _shing_ of metal on the other side, and _runs_.

“Victor!” he bursts into the Lavender Room. “Take Yurochka and go!”

“What?” Victor is sitting on his bed, reading a book in the lantern-light.

Yuuri doesn’t have time to explain. “Go get Yurochka and run to Metzrin! He knows how to get out unnoticed-”

“Yuuri, what’s happening-”

Yuuri bites back his frustration. “Victor! You have to _go_.”

To his credit, Victor is already shucking on pants and coat. “Is it the new-”

Banging echoes through the building, fists smashing on the door. _At least that will wake up Yurochka_. “Take care of my son,” Yuuri says instead, and darts away, grabbing a set of throwing knives and a rapier that he has stashed next to the staircase for times like this. He vaults over the railing onto the ground level, and hears Victor run behind him towards the West Wing.

The door to the West Wing closes as the front door breaks down, an axe smashing through the wood, the metal glinting in the moonlight. Twelve soldiers and one lackey of a lord flood into the front hall, all of them eying Yuuri.

Yuuri takes a deep breath, squares his shoulders. Lifts his rapier up. “Do you have no manners?” he echoes his question from earlier.

His only answer is an arrow whistling past his ear, and the clinking of chainmail.

_Yurochka- Victor- please be safe._

* * *

 “Yuri!” Victor bursts into the bedroom only to find the youth already awake, clutching his leopardskin. “Yuri we have to go.”

“What?” There’s a faint crashing sound that makes Victor cringe. “Victor, what’s-”

Victor crosses the room and grabs Yuri by the shoulders. “We don’t have time — your father told me to take you and run.”

Yuri’s eyes widen in shock. “What- no, I’m not going- I can fight-” He clutches the leopardskin like a weapon, but Victor shakes him.

“Your father wants us to run. Yura, please-”

“No!” Yuri shouts, “I can fight, there’s no way I’m leaving Papa alone-”

“We don’t have time for this!” Victor hisses, injecting as much urgency in his voice as possible. “Please, Yura! What if you get hurt?! Yuuri will never forgive himself!”

The sound of metal clashing can be heard faintly through the wood as they stare at each other. “... Let’s go,” Yuri whispers, his voice cracking with emotion. “Follow me, be quiet.”

They slip through a hidden staircase next to Yuri’s room that leads to the kitchen. This close, and they can hear the clash of steel and angry yells of attackers, but Victor doesn’t let them hesitate as they dash out the kitchen door.

“Papa’s immortal, he’ll be fine.” The way he says it though sounds like Yuri is trying to convince himself more than Victor.

Victor looks up from where he’s saddling a horse. “Aren’t you-?” Yuri doesn’t reply, simply helping him fasten the last few buckles. Victor looks at him warily. “You are _not_ going back in there-”

Yuri’s eyes are so very green in the moonlight, like fragile glass pieces about to shatter. He shakes his head furiously and pulls his leopardskin on. In moments, there is a leopard there instead.

In the beginning, Yuri had become a leopard to chase Victor away from his father.

Now, they run to Metzrin together, fleeing enemies of his father.

 _Please be safe, Yuuri_.

* * *

 Fighting is like dancing.

There are twelve of them in all, a good number. For them, not for Yuuri. The messenger hangs back, watching. _Two in the back with crossbows, closest has battleaxe, rest have small axes or swords_. His gaze flickers over the group, cataloguing them.

“You’re all idiots.” He doesn’t bother to be polite; there’s no point in being kind to someone you’re about to kill. His left hand drifts towards his knives.

The one with the battleaxe shrugs. “Just doing our job.” His eyes glance to the messenger for a second, but a second is all that Yuuri needs.

One, two knives he pulls from him belt and throws them with practiced accuracy as a distraction, darting forward with his rapier at the same time. He _knows_ where to stab, what point on the chest to go through the ribs and pierce the heart. Faster than the rest can react, a battleaxe crashes to the floor next to him, Yuuri shoving the body off his blade immediately and retreating four steps.

The rest of the group take a moment to register the kill, register that Yuuri himself is certainly a threat, and from there it all descends into chaos. He only has a half-second to spare a prayer for Yuri’s safety before everything is lost to a dance of steel and legs and fists.

 _Three to the front, left, right, crossbows aimed-_ Yuuri retreats up the stairs, forcing them to come two at a time. _They can’t shoot me like this, I’m too short_. The first pair fall to his rapier, blade flashing too quickly for them to see before they lose their vision, the tip darting across their eyes in a move designed to blind. _An effective move,_ he knows, kicking them both as they’re reeling back- forces the ones in the back to pause or risk hurting their comrades.

At the same time, he reaches with his mind for the magic that lies in this estate. So many mages have stayed here, and each have imparted him gifts. Some to make life easier, others to let him pass the time, and many to help him defend himself. The baying of hounds and hunting-dogs fill the air outside, and the mercenaries falter for just the slightest second.

Yuuri takes the opening for what it is — draws another knife in his left and lunges forward to thrust once again with his rapier. Carves a wound into their throat for good measure, because when enemies are wearing chainmail, a single strike is never enough. _Four down_ (one dead, two blinded, one stabbed just now) _eight remain._ He’s barely sweating, but Yuuri feels like a tightly wound spring, adrenaline coursing as his world focuses, zooms in on the six people in front him.

They’re all on guard now; any thought that he was just a weak noble has long been killed like their comrade. But there’s no time for them to strategize against him as dogs run in barking through the broken-down front door, lunging for those that dare hurt their master.

But pain sears Yuuri’s right shoulder, a crossbow bolt finding home in his flesh. He staggers back as the man who’d fired it falls to angry teeth and nails, and as his animals tear into the messenger and the other person with a crossbow, the six in front of him take their opportunity.

He cannot dance when there’s a sword cleaving his wrist and knocking his rapier away, or an axe at his thigh. Pain _screams_ through his body, but even when there are four weapons in him, having tasted his blood, Yuuri does not fall. Not completely, even with a sword in his chest.

His body collapses on the staircase bannister, and Yuuri can only barely grasp the wood with his nearly-severed wrist. There’s nothing he can say as he watches his dogs tear into his enemies, those that have hurt him.

Would have hurt Yuri and Victor, if they had the chance. It’s that kind of thought that makes it easy for him to discard their lives, because Yuuri has lived a long time and met many different kinds of people.

He knows men like these. _Foolish_. “Do you regret it?” he asks the last man standing, once the carnage is over.

* * *

 On foot, it took Victor three hours to get to Yuuri’s estate from Metzrin. On horseback, it takes less than an hour, switching between a canter and a trot.

Yuri says nothing during their trip, as he is a leopard. But Victor can tell his grief and worry in the way that his tail lashes against the branches, the lack of grace in his movements. As much as he wants to ask Yuri if this has happened before, he can’t.

But Yuri sheds his leopardskin in exchange for sitting behind Victor about three quarters through the trip, slumped against his back with reluctance and fatigue. “I’m scared,” he admits during a trot.

“I don’t blame you,” Victor replies. “The thought that people enter your home like that...”

“This isn’t the first time,” Yuri says. His voice is as fragile as his posture. “Every time, Papa makes me run. He’s fine when I come back, though, but...”

“Just because Yuuri is immortal doesn’t mean he can’t get hurt,” Victor finishes. He feels Yuri nod against his back. “... He cares about you very much.”

Yuri makes an irritated noise. “I know! But- I’m not a child anymore, I can help drive the bad ones away!” the words trip over themselves as they exit his mouth, syllables rushed because a mixture of ire, worry, and confusion that’s knotted in his throat.

“Yuuri is old,” Victor points out softly. “So old, all of us will always be children to him.”

Yuri slumps at that.

A little later, Victor thinks he hears him say, “Papa cares about you very much too, you know,” but he doesn’t comment on it.

When they finally reach Metzrin, the town glows with lit lanterns. Yuuko’s inn _Fallen Snow_ brightly is brightly lit. Yuri shows him how to get to the back-door of the inn, and they don’t bother tethering the horse, as she’s one of Yuuri’s, and thus is intelligent enough that she doesn’t require tethering.

“Victor?” Yuuko looks up from the stove as they enter, brushing snow off their clothes. “Yuri? What brings you here?” Boisterous laughter from dining area covers up Victor’s answer, and Yuri stiffens, clutching his leopardskin. Yuuko follows his gaze, and makes a face. “It’s the lord’s group I told you about yesterday.”

Yuri’s lips twist into a snarl, and his grip on his leopardskin becomes white-knuckled. “What’s his name?” he asks in a low voice. “He feels _wrong_.”

“Jean-Jacques, heir of house Leroy.”

* * *

 The last mercenary has short hair, closely-shaven at the sides and back. He’s surrounded by angry dogs, and he clutches his sword like a lifeline. His eyes aren’t on the dogs though, but on Yuuri. “I don’t think any of us knew what we were getting into,” the man says. “My... all of us were hired a few days ago. To raid a mansion. There was nothing about this.” He glances at the dogs. “Why aren’t they attacking?”

“It seems like you’re the only one that hasn’t hurt me so far,” Yuuri says by way of explanation. “Drop your weapons and they’ll let you go.”

“Let me go?” is echoed in confusion, but he drops his sword and several hunting knives anyway. Instantly, the dogs take the weapons away, and the growling subsides. The man stands there for several long seconds before his attention snaps to Yuuri. “What about you?” he asks. “Your wounds...”

Yuuri smiles bitterly. “Didn’t you hear your employer?” he ignores his pain and waves his one good hand at the corpse in the corner, finery torn to shreds. “I’m immortal.”

“Immortal?” he says the word like he doesn’t believe it. Yuuri doesn’t really blame him. “Even if you’re immortal though, all of that must hurt.”

Yuuri laughs weakly. “Very few think about it that way,” he rasps. The world blurs at the edges a little. “What’s your name?”

“Otabek.”

“Well then Otabek, if you want to help me, help me lie down.” Yuuri reaches towards him, uncaring of his state of disarray. The dogs watch as Otabek approaches, watch very carefully as he slings Yuuri’s arm over his shoulders. “The hallway. Let me lie in the hallway. Also, help me pull out the sword in my chest, it’s uncomfortable.”

Otabek grunts and hauls Yuuri through the door of the West Wing, setting him down on the carpet gently. “Are you sure you’re immortal?” his voice sounds somewhat concerned. Yuuri doesn’t answer, staring at the sword in his chest, and Otabek gently sets a foot on his arm and eases it out.

Immediately, it’s harder to breath, Yuuri’s left lung deflating, his ribs screaming in pain, blood soaking more into his shirt. His vision blacks out for a moment, but death still has not yet come for him. “I’m sure,” he wheezes.

“I...” Otabek stares down at him, impassive features crossing over with worry. “What should I...?”

Ah, mercenaries. Decent people when they’re not hired to kill you, or have been dissasuded from the task. “Go back to your lord, whoever sent that messenger, and tell them that they are a _fool_ ,” Yuuri manages to spit out. “Seeking immortality is stupid. Tell them what happened here, tell them to go back to wherever they came from.”

“And you?”

“I’ll be fine by morning,” Yuuri rasps. “Now go. Take a horse.”

Otabek stares at him briefly before nodding. Yuuri is aware of what state he’s in - crossbow bolt in his shoulder, gaping wound in his chest, nearly-severed wrist, bleeding thighs from axe-strikes. It’s a miserable state. He hears Otabek’s footsteps as he leaves, the wood reverberating under the carpet. _I’m glad that Yurochka and Victor aren’t here to see this_ , he thinks through the haze of pain.

But even though he’s glad to spare them this sight, a sliver of his soul wishes they were here, so that his dying would not be so lonely.

* * *

 The lord sets off every one of Yuri’s _guilty_ instincts, and it’s hard to hide as he and Victor enter the dining room, Yuuko promising them a bit or warm food and drink to recover from their snowy dash. Victor had deflected her concerns as to their presence, which Yuri is somewhat grateful for — he doesn’t want to deal with her fretting about Papa right now. That, on top of his own thoughts, wouldn’t be helpful at all.

He and Victor settle down at the bar counter, on the edge of the crowd. The dining room is packed with people despite the late hour. Several are clearly soldiers, but there’s a good chunk of townspeople as well. The center of it all is a young man, finely dressed, who leans his chair back against the table while he regales the crowd with stories.

Yuri can’t help but stare at him, ears twitching the slightest. _Rip out his throat_ , his leopard instincts seem to say, _he’s guilty. Guilty._ But Yuri doesn’t shrug on his leopardskin, and instead tries to figure out why this cocky-looking stranger feels so terrible.

Next to him, Victor sits up a little straighter. Stiffens. “What did you say brought you here?” he calls over the crowd to the young man.

Jean-Jacques looks at him, a little surprised at his sudden input, but grins. “I heard rumours of a mansion that bestows its owner with immortality!” he exclaims. “Wonderous, isn’t it? I sent my men to investigate earlier; hopefully Davis has convinced whoever lives there that it would do well in _my_ ownership.”  

Everything _clicks_ , but before Yuri can turn into a leopard and _go for the throat,_ Victor _lunges_.

In an instant, he’s in the middle of the crowd, holding the asshole  up by the collar. “Did I hear you right?” he snarls, and Yuri flinches at the absolute vehemence on the man’s face.

(He’s never seen Victor angry, now that he thinks of it. He’s always smiling, always looking at Papa fondly-)

“You attacked Yuuri because you thought that the estate brings immortality?!” Victor’s grip is merciless, his eyes cold blue like a devouring, all-consuming blizzard.

“What-” the lord tries to rasp out.

“You think immortality is all that great, huh?” Victor loosens his grip just the slightest, “ _Answer me_.”

The asshole wheezes, “If I live there I can ensure prosperity for my house forever- I could become king!” And god, Yuri has never felt like inflicting bodily harm so much on someone before. But something stays his hand.

“You naive fool,” Victor tightens his grip again, and brings his face so close to the asshole’s that he’s practically spitting on him in disdain.  “Immortality doesn’t come like that. You hurt someone I care about because you have _misguided delusions of grandeur_ -”

“What do you know?!” the asshole cries. “You’re just a commoner!”

The temperature of the room seems to drop twenty degrees, and all of a sudden, everything that had been screaming to Yuri that the asshole was _guilty_ switched to Victor, screaming _wrong wrong wrong something is wrong with him-_

Victor’s eyes narrow into slits, as if he’s trying to kill the asshole right then and there with his gaze alone. “You are _talking_ _to an immortal_ , you dimwit.”

_What._

“My name is Victor Nikiforov. You may have heard of me once, back in Cendey where you Leroy’s are from.”

The asshole instantly goes pale. “But- _two hundred years ago!”_

Victor smiles. It is not a nice smile. “I’m four hundred and sixty-seven years old. So trust me when I say that immortality isn’t pleasant.”

Yuri can only stare as the pieces click together one by one, and Victor throws Jean-Jacques out the door.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not much to say this time, but-
> 
> 1\. I hope that the ending revelation is akin, somewhat, to the last scene of episode 10, in terms of Victor's motivations. I've been building up to the point since the beginning. I'm glad that some of you caught the big points last chapter! Bonus to anyone that finds all the foreshadowing lines in previous chapters. 
> 
> 2\. I like JJ as a character, sorry. He was just a bit of a convenient villain for this role. Also, Otabek has made his appearance!! I'd like to clarify that Otabek's group is a bunch of mercenaries. They weren't exactly great people, but they weren't exactly terrible people either. We get a little bit of his backstory next chapter, but suffice to say he didn't have much camaraderie with the dead people, as he only recently joined their group. 
> 
> 3\. Yuuri and murder — Yuuri actually really doesn't like killing, but living for so long in his circumstances has made him learn that more malevolent visitors really don't have any other fate. His willingness to kill is furthered by his feelings for Yuri- while Yuuri is immortal, his son is not, and Yuuri will do a lot of things to keep Yuri safe. I decided back in chapter two that he would fight with the rapier because it's a fairly light and fast weapon with a lot of power. He has knives mostly for distraction, and goes in for the kill with his rapier. While he is an experienced fighter though, he isn't the greatest in a fight (he compares fighting to dancing to convince himself that he won't falter in a fight) but ultimately he lacks a degree of situational awareness, which is how he got an arrow to the knee- I mean, shoulder. 
> 
> 4\. Yuri's leopard-instincts: After spending so much time over the years as a leopard, Yuri experiences sort of a bleed-through due to the magic of the leopardskin, and thus has very keen intuition and senses. He can't tell exactly what part of a statement is a lie, but he knows when a person is behaving strangely and has most likely lied to him. Also, there seems to be a misconception with some people that he can shift on his own, but no. The leopardskin cloak he has is what enables him to shift, he requires it. A little like selkies, I suppose, but the leopardskin was bought. For the record, all people in the Safir plains which is mentioned that the skin is from have similar traits to him.
> 
> 5\. For the record, Victor "gift" is Stammi Vicino, but violin instrumental. It's incomplete because this story is. 
> 
> 6\. In the third scene, in which Victor and Yuri are finally having A Talk, Yuri waffles between how he address Victor in his head because of his conflicting feelings about him. At first he insists that Victor is just a "guest", thus an intruder into his home, but when he's surprised he slips up and refers to him but name. He settles on "weirdo" simply because Yuri doesn't want to call him by name. But when Victor displays that he is genuine in his feelings to Yuuri, Yuri lets his hostility drop and calls him by name. Hopefully this didn't come off as too confusing.
> 
> I hope this chapter was satisfying :)
> 
> (Also, I figured that it would be good to mention that this isn't really a slow burn in the conventional sense. It doesn't take that long for the otp to get together, it just takes a lot of words lol)


	6. if only I could see you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Otabek shows up fifteen minutes late with starbucks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy shit!!! Last chapter we broke 150 comments and like, wow, I only dreamed that this story would get that much. 
> 
> Also you may have noticed that the chapter count has gone up. 9 is technically the last chapter, 10 is an epilogue, and 11 will be an afterword. 
> 
> warning for suicide mention for this chapter

_Se potessi vederti / If I could see you_  
_Dalla speranza nascerà / From hope_  
_L’eternità / Eternity will be born_

For a minute, all that reigns is pandemonium.

Swords are drawn, chairs scraping against wood as Leroy’s retinue take offense to Victor. He pays them no mind though, stalking out of the inn to loom over the fool struggling to his feet, the snow freezing around him ever so slightly, unwilling to relinquish its grip.

To his credit, the idiot lordling knows when to be afraid. “How?” he croaks.

Victor smiles down thinly at him. “I’m the one asking questions now.” The fool’s eyes widen, but before Victor can commence his interrogation, someone strikes.

It’s to his ribs, a warning more than anything, merely making him stagger to the side. It’s certainly unpleasant though, and the snow in the air takes offense to the attacker. Before they can swing their blade to strike again, Victor turns around and clenches his right hand. Following his wishes, ice forms around the  hands clutching the sword-hilt.

He hears Yuri’s yell of warning as the initial attacker shrieks out their shock, and then there are two, three people lunging forward, roaring at Victor to get away from their lord. He steps on their lord instead as he backs away from the door of the tavern, watching them come out to join him in the snow. “He’s not natural!” the initial attacker yells. “M-My hands!”

Unfortunately, before the rest can heed his words, snow is already slumping together at their feet, and it’s a simple matter for Victor to reach for his magic again and tell the ice and elements of cold to freeze them where they stand. “One wrong move,” he calls, words ringing clearly through the air, “And I will freeze your lord alive.”

That gets the rest to fall back, murmuring uneasily, hands on the hilts of their weapons. Victor chances a glance at the back of the inn, wincing inwardly at Yuri and Yuuko’s frozen expressions of disbelief and confusion. But he can’t let that stop him, not when this man had sent people to attack Yuuri and driven Yuri out of his own home. So he turns back to the fool. “You hurt someone very dear to me,” he hisses, and watches as frost curls patterns onto the panicked man’s skin.

“S-so?” is the reply, Jean-Jacques straining against the ice, “If he’s really immortal it’s not like he’ll die-”

“Silence!” it takes less than a second for an icicle to form in Victor’s hand, the tip at the fool’s throat. “You know nothing; just because we can’t die doesn’t mean that it-”

He’s cut off quite literally by a blade, staggering forward at the impact. That is, a blade stuck through his stomach. “Victor!” he hears Yuri yell, and an instant later there’s more chaos at the sound of vicious animalistic snarling, screams at the youth disappearing and a leopard appearing instead. Flesh hitting flesh as people try to get out of the way, Yuuko’s voice threading panic through the air. Dimly, Victor can hear her husband and her children as well.

There’s not really an opportunity to turn around though. Victor switches his gaze from the fool to the tip of the sword that’s buried hilt-first in his back. “This is incredibly rude,” he huffs, “Didn’t your mother teach you better manners?” He takes off his left glove and grabs the blade, ignoring the bite of steel against his palm, and pushes it backwards. The man at his back tries to cut sideways, but Victor is having none of it. “Thanks for missing my spine, at least,” he mutters just as the assailant thuds to the ground, a hundred pounds of angry cat clawing at his face. “Thanks Yurio!”

He deliberately makes eye contact with the fool as he twists around to grab the hilt, yanking out the blade in one movement. There is only silence from the inn as Victor throws the sword to the side and lifts his shirt and strips out of his cloak in order to minimize the amount of blood soaking into them. Washing blood out is quite a pain, after all.

The wound inflicted on his is not small, and he knows exactly what everyone else is seeing. Flesh knits together so fast that within seconds, the blood around the area is that only sign that he had been hurt at all. He feels his internal organs repairing themselves — it’s never a pleasant sensation, and a part of Victor morbidly wishes that the wound was bigger, to force them all to see his intestines reorient themselves, or his stomach acid eating at his own flesh before it pieces back together and the damage heals. “Immortality is wonderful, isn’t it?” he asks the question without meaning for any answer.

Victor steps away from Jean-Jacques in order to scan over his soldiers. “Now, what did I say I would do if you did anything I didn’t like?” he muses. “Right, _this_.”

“No- no no no-!” The soldiers are unable to do anything, frozen in horror and ice as Victor makes the ice spread over the fool’s skin, ever so slowly to prolong the lesson. He hopes it’s a lasting one for all parties involved.

Then, there is the sound of hooves clip-clopping against the ground, a rider coming into view in the snowfall. The horse is tall and regal, sides heaving as it’s brought to a stop a few meters away from the scene. The person that dismounts is square-jawed and his eyes are hard as flint as he looks down at the fool and up at Victor. “... What are you doing, sir?” the newcomer asks, his tone benign but his presence anything but.

“Otabek!” one of the soldiers cries out the name in recognition, but before Victor can do anything about the fact that another person he needs to kill has shown up, a shape blurs past him.

A leopard one second, a man the next, Yuri tackles the man to the ground, his hands yanking at Otabek’s collar. “I know that horse!” he screams, their faces so close that he’s practically spitting on him with every syllable, verbal venom. “How dare you! And I know the blood in your clothes too-

“ _What did you do Papa!?_ ” the words are so loud, so full of killing intent and the promise of pain that Victor hears the town start to wake from its nighttime sleepiness, people finally being roused by the commotion. A hand-wave is all it takes for snow to reach up and freeze doors shut, seep into windowsills so anyone that doesn’t need to can witness this. Victor feels the weight of the other soldiers’ stare rather than see their heads turn, and the snow under his feet doesn’t crunch as he treads closer to Yuri.

The man he’s pinning doesn’t struggle or try to defend himself which is — odd. “I didn’t do anything,” he says, voice somehow steady. “That’s why I’m still alive. The dogs tore the others to pieces.”

Yuri’s grip on him tightens. “Really? Yet you had the gall to steal one of our horses?” Said horse huffs and its front hooves hit the ground in a peculiar tempo that seem to mean something to Yuri. “... oh.”

“Is Yuuri okay?” Victor breaks in, a sort of creeping dread stealing over his skin and chilling his bones in a way that the snow doesn’t. “His animals are smart, did he order this one to-”

Otabek shakes his head. “He was bleeding out when I left the estate. He told me to take a horse.”

“Why?”

He gestures to the other men. “To tell Lord Leroy that he is a fool, seeking immortality is stupid, and to go back where he came from.” He pauses for a moment, “His words, not mine.”

Victor lets go of a breath he didn’t know he was holding. “Yurio,” he calls, “Let him go. Grab the horses, we’re going back. Otabek, was it? You’re coming with us.”

“Why?” Yurio demands. “You- They should all just-” his face twists with a grief that someone his age should never wear. “They hurt Papa. They should die.”

It would be so easy to freeze them alive, honestly, with all the snow falling. The elements are in Victor’s favour. Not even that, he could gore them on icicles, give them frostbite and force them to die of hypothermia. Letting them die would be easy. But — Otabek is here for a reason, carries a message for a reason, and it makes Victor rein himself in. “They _should_ die,” he agrees quietly, because Victor has lived too long to easily forgive those that hurt his loved ones. “But Yuuri wants them to go back where they came from.”

At that, Yuri falters, his grip slackening. “But- Papa-” his shoulders shake in a way that Victor would have thought another person was crying, but he knows the youth well enough that he wouldn’t cry like this, in front of people he loathes. A shaky sigh, and then Yuri gets off of Otabek, eyes hidden by his hair. “If you do anything,” he says — it’s meant to be a snarl, but his voice is far too empty for it — “I will tear out your throat.” With that, Yuri hurries off to where he and Victor had left his horse.

“I thought leopard shifters don’t exist this far up North,” Otabek wonders aloud to Yuri’s retreating form.

“You thought wrong,” Yuri snaps before rounding the corner of the inn.

Calm settles in the area, finally, with the departure of the volatile teen. Otabek gets to his feet and just... hovers where he is, unsure of what to do. He doesn’t seem dangerous, or particularly inclined to assist the fool, so Victor turns his back on him to face the soldiers and the foolish half-frozen lord. He makes the ice soften into snow to free them, taking no small amount of satisfaction at their blue lips and chattering teeth. He won’t kill them, because that’s not what Yuuri would have wanted, but he’ll let them suffer. “I’m only sparing you because I will respect Yuuri’s wishes,” he says quietly, but clearly enough that his voice carries through the air. “But if any of you are still in this town by noon, you will become ice statues.”

It’s not a threat, it’s a promise, and the men recognize it as such. They stare at him with trepidation, a quake in their conviction when faced with his, and two pick up their lord and drag him back into the inn.

Above their heads, Victor makes eye contact with Yuuko. Her expression is still painted over with surprise, but there’s a slant to her mouth that makes Victor think that she would like nothing more than to toss out the men and let them freeze to death. But Otabek is unharmed, and one of the manor horses had willingly taken him to Metzrin, so there must be some truth to his words. And if Yuuri wants to spare those that wished him harm, Victor will respect that, even though a part of him wants nothing more than to take the Leroy lord by the neck and freeze his very blood in his veins. ‘For Yuuri’s sake,’ he mouths to Yuuko. She nods once, a jerky movement, and sets her face in a frosty polite mask as she responds to the pleas of the nearly-frozen men.

Yuri reappears from around the corner with Victor’s horse, grip on the his leopardskin white-knuckled with tension. It aches a little, to look at him, because Victor knows Yuri to be of spitfire and brimming emotions — but now he has none of that. He looks younger than he actually is, a lost child without their parent. “We’re going back?” he asks Victor, but his eyes on Otabek, a weary set to his shoulders.

It finally occurs to Victor that it’s late, and they’d only arrived at the in less than a quarter of an hour ago, at least. “Do you want to stay here for the night?” Victor offers. “It’s late.”

“ _No_ ,” Yuri snarls, regaining some of his usual energy. “Papa...” his voice trails off, and he sways on his feet, just a little. “Papa is all alone. And he’s hurt.”

To Yuri, the fact that Yuuri is alone is more important than any possible wounds. Victor wants to pause the moment, try to track the pulse of the words and why Yuri’s experiences would prioritize one over the other. But he doesn’t ask, merely getting onto his mare. Yuri is about to seat himself behind him, but Victor gestures to Otabek. “You’re coming with us.”

The soldier raises an eyebrow. “Pardon?” he sounds weary as well, as if he’s had much too long of a day. Victor doesn’t care.

“If you’re lying about anything at all,” Victor says, “I will take every single lie out of your hide.” Yuri tenses behind him, but gets off his horse and approaches Otabek. “Come along then.”

Otabek obeys, his unease only conveyed by his clenched jaw. Yuri gets onto the horse behind Otabek in the saddle, and Victor hears a whisper of threat as he spurs his mare to head back to the estate.

The ride back goes by faster than when they’d been running from the estate. Victor remembers someone once saying that the return trip always feels shorter, because you’re going home. The mansion isn’t Victor’s home though — he hasn’t had a proper one for centuries — but Yuuri is. Yuuri makes him feel at peace, at home, and the thought that Yuuri could be alone in a manor full of dead bodies makes Victor _remember_.

He remembers Yuuri’s journals, six hundred years written down of the man’s struggles. He hadn’t read all of them of course, but he’d read enough.

As they gallop through the forest, pushing their horses on, Victor’s mind is back at the mansion, reading. Of the many times that Yuuri had tried to kill himself to be free from his immortality. Bleeding, hanging, burning alive, drowning — nothing worked, nothing was permanent (he set up his suicides like an experiment, testing to see if anything could push the limits of his immortality to set himself free) because every time Yuuri would die he would wake again, whole, like a phoenix from the ashes.

A suicidal phoenix.

Between those and the long written rambles of _It’s so lonely to live forever,_ Victor doesn’t know what’s worse, what he relates to more. He too, has done his fair share of seeking death. But Victor has never died like Yuuri has, as injury that could kill him heals immediately, and he is impervious to illness. Small things, like paper cuts and Yuri’s leopard claws, would heal like a normal person, but otherwise Victor could be speared through by ten paladins, fight them off, and take out the weapons one by one, wounds healing every time. It’s an unpleasant feeling, but after over four hundred years pain is a numb thing to him.

Yuuri must be similar in that regard — but rather than pain, it is death that is a numb thing to him.

* * *

“Why did you attack Papa?” the youth behind him asks. His arms are are around his waist, but Otabek feels how tense the contact is, like they might throw Otabek off the horse rather than secure a position.

He doesn’t know how to answer that question in a way that won’t get him killed. “We were hired to,” Otabek decides to use as a reply. “A man approached us and paid us to take over a mansion. I had no idea...”

A click of the tongue. “Tch. What... how was Papa when you left?”

Otabek normally isn’t a talkative person, but he feels his trickle of words dry up completely. “... He was bad,” he mutters. “My comrades did a number on him, before the dogs tore into them.” And that was something that would haunt Otabek for a long time, dogs breaking out of their kennels to tear into his comrades like hungry ghosts, brutal and quick like their wolf relatives. Being surrounded by them, judging him- waiting for him to make one wrong move against their master before they tore into him as well.

The grip on his waist tightens for a fraction of a second. “They deserved it,” he hears. “Anyone that hurts Papa deserves what comes to them.”

“He’s your father?” Otabek can’t draw any similarities between the person behind him and the man he had left dying. “He doesn’t look like it.”

“Papa is Papa,” comes the stubborn reply.

Adopted, then. “You’re a strange one, aren’t you?” Otabek murmurs. “Your father is an immortal and you can skin-change into a leopard.”

“My name is Yuri.” The introduction comes unexpectedly, and Otabek is tempted to look behind him to try to see the yo- Yuri’s expression, but he doesn’t. “That’s the name of the person that will kill you if try to do anything.”

“Okay.” There isn’t much one can say to something like that. Yuri falls silent, leaving Otabek alone to his own thoughts again.

His comrades... Otabek became a mercenary for the travelling opportunity, because he was good with the sword. There had been a connection of sorts, the one that develops when you fight bears and kobolds together with someone, but Otabek is- _had_ been the youngest of them all. A sort of disconnect, as they’d all viewed him as an apprentice of sorts rather than an equal.

He tries not to let himself miss them, because now is not the time.

(And he knows that the immortal had been in the right to kill them all — but still, he misses them.)

* * *

_Why does it have to take so long?_ Yuuri wonders as he lays in the hallway.

It’s cold. He can hear his dogs outside, probably burying the bodies. The magic of the house will clean up the bloodstains and any gore soon. By the time Yuri and Victor come back ( _if they come back_ ) everything should be fine. Everything should like normal.

_It’s so cold._

Immortality hurts, in all ways that matter. Emotionally, it’s like being slowly boiled alive. Everyone leaves Yuuri behind, whether they want to or not; via death or their own passage away from the estate. Leaving is an inevitability for everyone.

And whenever someone comes in and tries to hurt Yuuri, it physically hurts when they strike him. It hurts now as he bleeds out in the hallway, the moon looking down on him through the window with her pallor face, her light his only company. It hurts to die, and it hurts to come back alive.

Life is painful. Why do people think that having an eternal life would _absolve_ them of that pain?

_I’ve been cold for so long._

The floor is cold beneath him, his blood cooling as well. It’s unpleasant, how long it takes to die. Unpleasant, how his body fights death until the very last second before extinguishing his awareness like a candle and waking him up again with all the sensitive sickening awareness of an inferno.

The air is cold, not only because it’s late winter, but because... Yuuri chokes up a sob, and if he had the strength he would throw his arm over his eyes, to let his sleeve soak up his tears.

Everything feels cold because Yuuri’s heart has been cold for so long.

 _No one’s here._ And that should be a good thing, because he loves Yurochka, his only son, so dearly and doesn’t want him to see this, but at the same time _dying is terrifying,_ no matter how many times Yuuri has gone through it.

A few hours ago, he had been happy, enjoying the warmth of Victor’s presence and his son’s happiness. He’d been able to pretend, for a moment, that they were a family of three instead of just two, that Victor would stay like he said he would. But then the mercenaries had come, and Yuuri had been forced to push them away. It’s like going to sleep curled up with someone you love, only to wake up to an empty bed and no sign they had been there.

Happiness is fleeting. It’s always yanked away eventually, and no matter how happy he is, he returns to being _cold so cold_ , and there’s nothing he can do to stop it.

Him and Victor and Yurochka being a family together? That’s a story that makes no sense, and any dreams he had of that disappeared tonight into the stars. The mercenaries had been a vicious reminder that Yuuri isn’t normal and can never hope to have such a normal hope.

In the distance, he hears hooves, yelling. A conversation, someone begging “ _Yurio, please stay out here_.” Footsteps, coming closer.

Together they had been a nonsensical story with only a tragic ending written for the future, but still — “Victor?” Yuuri mumbles as silver appears above him. “Is that you?”

His vision is blurring now; finally he’s going to die. The person above him says something, but it sounds like they’re speaking underwater, words coming out as sounds Yuuri can’t comprehend. Maybe this is another hallucination brought on by dying, even though he’ll come back alive in less than an hour, once he’s healed. He’s had such delusions before in the near-death state.

Something touches his hand, and Yuuri closes his eyes, letting his own hand grip the warm one that’s holding him now. He wonders if Victor and Yurochka are safe. He hopes they are.

But still, he misses them.

_If I could see you now, if only you were here-_

_From this eternal life of mine, maybe hope could be borne._

He takes a shuddering breath, and dies again.

“-YUURI!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a heavy chapter to write. It gets better from here.
> 
> Victor's immortality will be touched upon in later chapters. For the record, he calls himself shit at magic in chapter one because his magic came along with his immortality, and all he can really do is brute-force things and it's fueled by his emotions. He has too little control for him to be classified as a mage. Needless to say, Yakov gained several gray hairs because of him back in the day.


	7. I'm afraid of losing you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> things break down
> 
> (Victor shows up on time with Starbucks)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aaaaaaaaaa I have returned before my projects hit to finally deliver this chapter. Thank you for your patience. 
> 
> Shoutout to Nica and Belsefar and Hailey, the wonderful people that believed in me when I didn't believe in myself (and bless Nica for hearing my numerous complaints about writing this damn fic). And also to the wonderful Runa, for the hell of it.

_Stammi vicino / Stay close to me_  
_Non te ne andare / Don’t go_  
_Ho paura di perderti / I’m afraid of losing you_

 

When Victor first sees the ruined door of the mansion, he thinks that his heart just might stop.

He can tell that the front hall is a mess of blood and gore from his first glance, and he blocks the the remains of the door with a sheet of ice, quickly pivoting on his heel to face Yuri and Otabek. “Victor?” Yuri’s voice quavers with confusion.

“I’ll go in alone,” Victor says. “You two wait out here.”

Otabek stills, clearly knowing what Victor is trying to keep hidden. Yuri’s lips twist into a scowl though, fingers clenching his leopardskin cloak to stave off the cold. “You’re not telling me something,” Yuri says, “I don’t like that. This is _my_ home, and it’s cold, and Papa is-”

Victor tosses his coat towards Yuri without a second thought. Ever since he became the way he is, cold temperatures barely faze him. “If you’re cold, wear that,” he hears himself say. “Just- Yurio, please stay out here.”

“I-” Yuri is interrupted by Otabek’s arm cutting through the air in front of him. The mercenary’s face is downcast, shadowed by grim grief. “What-”

“If...” Otabek bites his lip, staring at the ground like it could offer some form of salvation from this moment, “You don’t...”

“Your father would kill me if he found out that I let you see,” Victor explains for him. Otabek nods stiffly, and Yuri balks at their united front. Comprehension comes over his face like a sunset, and he opens his mouth to speak, but something prompts his jaw to click shut.

“Fine,” the word is spat like an insult. He jabs a finger at Otabek. “But if you take too long, I’m going to send this guy off to see his comrades.”

Victor doesn’t have the time to be amused at Yuri trying to use Otabek as a hostage of sorts, or chide him with Yuuri’s implied wish that Otabek be left alive. So he presses his lips together to offer a wan smile and presses his hand to the ice. It gives way for him, a neat rectangle for him to enter, and reforms the moment he’s through.

The hall is a mess, but he doesn’t have time to register the blood and gore again. Victor scans the wreckage until he traces the carnage up the stairs, into the West Wing. The door is agape. He takes the steps two at a time, his heart in his throat, and-

When he opens the door, he thinks he might vomit his heart out out his mouth. He’s seen worse. He’s _inflicted_ worse. But this is Yuuri, who he cares about. Victor rushes to Yuuri’s side, kneeling on the ground despite the blood and grasping his hand, touching his cheek. “Yuuri,” he breathes. It’s painful to look at Yuuri and the stab-wounds in his abdomen, at the deeply cut leg. His eyes are unseeing, darting everywhere, and his skin is clammy to the touch. Victor can only imagine how painful it is for Yuuri himself, if it already hurts to just _look_.

“Victor?” Yuuri gasps, his tongue tangling around the syllables in way that drags the ‘tor’ into ‘to-ru’. “Is that you?”

“I’m here,” Victor answers immediately, squeezing Yuuri’s hand. “Yuuri, I’m here.” There is no indication of Yuuri having heard him though, his eyelashes starting to flutter as he struggles to keep his eyes open. “Yuuri, how-”

“Stay close to me,” Yuuri wheezes. The hand that Victor is holding slackens, and Victor can only stare in horror as his throat convulses around the next words. “Don’t go. I’m afraid-”

“Shhh, Yuuri, don’t talk,” Victor pleads, his heart tearing in two at Yuuri’s glassy expression. “It’s okay, I’m not going anywhere-”

“I’m afraid of losing you,” Yuuri continues like he didn’t hear Victor, his eyes finally falling shut. His cheek under Victor’s hand barely moves now. “It’s... it’s so cold.”

Yuuri’s hand slips from Victor’s grasp, a sudden deadweight. “Yuuri?” Victor pats against Yuuri’s cheek and then seeks for a pulse in his neck. “Yuuri?”

There is no pulse. “YUURI!” the scream tears itself out of Victor’s throat, unbidden, like a vulture tearing free from its cage to go eat a god’s liver. “No, no-”

Yuuri is immortal. Logically, he knows this because of the journals he’s read and the experiences Yuuri has shared with him, on nights which they sat together in front of the fireplace. Victor knows it, but right now all he does right now is bury his face in the hollow of Yuuri’s neck, holding the his body as close to him as possible. He’d read about Yuuri’s dying, but nothing in the world could have prepared him for _this_. For Yuuri going still in his hands, his body heavily wounded and his pulse gone.

Victor has had other people he’s cared about die in his arms before, but Yuuri is the first one that gave him _hope_ for a new future. Hope for a different life than the wandering one that he’s had for more than four hundred years.

He feels it at first. How can Victor not feel, when he’s clutching Yuuri to his chest like the most precious of existences? He feels the body under him warm slightly, a pulse coming to life under his fingertips. When he lifts his head to look at Yuuri’s body, he regrets it immediately, fixing his gaze on Yuuri’s face instead and the gentle expression that is common on corpses. Victor refuses to watch as Yuuri’s wounds knit close and his leg regrows despite having seen it all happen to himself before.

Anyone who thinks that immortality is a gift is a fool; he knows the bitter truth. Immortality is painful, more of a curse than a blessing.

(Though at least Victor’s immortality and Yuuri’s immortality have both allowed them to meet each other. That, Victor supposes, is one greatly redeeming feature.)

He doesn’t know how long it’s been since Yuuri’s breath first stopped, but he doesn’t care anymore. Not when Yuuri twitches in his arms, his fingers moving first, brushing against Victor’s shirt. His chest rises and falls as he breathes anew, and Victor quietly watches as his beloved comes to life again in his arms.

Yuuri _is_ his beloved, despite the fact that Victor has only known him for little more than a short month. Victor has loved before, both passionately and platonically, so he knows what love feels like. He feels the same towards Yuuri already — a wish to stay by Yuuri’s side no matter what happens. And it matters doubly now, because both of them are immortal. Neither of them, if Yuuri accepts him, would ever again have to fear their loved one aging and leaving through the passage of time.

Because they’re both immortal, and even if Yuuri cannot leave his estate, Victor would be all too happy to stop his wandering life. To finally have a place to call home, and someone that he can love unconditionally.

He hears Yuuri start breathing through his mouth now, and watches with bated breath as Yuuri’s eyes open, irises the same lovely shade of brown as always. “... Victor?” Yuuri whispers.

“It’s me,” Victor replies, transfixed on the million emotions that flit across Yuuri’s face now. “Are... are you okay?”

At this, Yuuri cracks a smile. “As much as someone that came back from the dead can be,” he jokes. Victor is about to pull him into a proper hug when Yuuri seizes up, his eyes going wide. “Wait, if you’re here- where’s Yurochka?!”

Victor winces. Right. He’d left them waiting outside. He can only pray that Otabek is still alive. “He’s okay,” Victor says. “He’s waiting outside the manor right now. I... saw the front hall, and I didn’t think that...” _that you wanted him to see this._

Yuuri sags with  relief. “Oh,” he sighs, “Thank you.”

“Do you need anything from me?” Victor asks. “Water, or...?”

Yuuri winces. “I... water would be helpful,” his voice is suddenly small, and he pries himself free of Victor grasp. “I need to- I need to activate the cleaning spells, so Yurochka can-” he pushes up from the floor with his arms, but his knees buckle and Victor only just catches him in time before his head impacts the floor.

“I can only imagine how tiring coming back from the dead must be,” Victor does his best not to to let his breath catch on the words and their dreadful implication. “I’ll get you water, okay? And just tell me how to activate the spells so Yurio doesn’t have to see the mess.”

Yuuri looks like he wants to argue with him for a moment, but he softens in Victor’s loose hold. “Okay then,” he says. “Just... can you help me to my bedroom? It’s the door to the right.”

“Of course.” Victor loops his arm under Yuuri’s, keeping him steady as he stands. Yuuri’s steps are small, and Victor ends up supporting most of his weight, but he doesn’t mind. As they shuffle towards Yuuri’s bedroom, the directions to activate the cleansing array are passed to Victor’s ears, as well as mumbles of thanks for Victor’s assistance.

Yuuri’s room is a little cluttered, full of open books and papers and writing desks. In the center though, there is a large bed. The room is dark as Victor doesn’t know where the switch to activate the light runes are, but the moonlight pouring through the window gives plenty of illumination.

Yuuri refuses to lie down on his bed in his state, as his clothes are ruined and blood still sticks to him, so Victor helps him to the adjoined washroom. “I’m good now,” Yuuri says, “Just... do as I told you and let Yurochka in, please.”

“Okay.” Victor leaves without a protest. But as he walks away, he can faintly see Yuuri’s form curl in, and his shoulders shake, hands gripping the stone sink. _It’s probably just post-resurrection shakes,_ he tells himself.

* * *

It only takes about a minute for Yuri to get antsy once Victor’s left. The cold doesn’t help, either, and he decides that moving is the best option before he gets frostbite on his feet or something.

He shrugs mentally, makes sure that Victor’s coat is secure, and reaches for the reins of the horses, deciding to head for the stables. The mercenary starts after him. “Where are you going?” Otabek asks.

“I don’t want to leave the horses in the snow,” Yuri deigns to answer. “And besides, the old man didn’t say that I had to stay there and wait, just that I couldn’t go in.” Otabek hesitates, but follows after him. “What are _you_ doing?”

He averts his eyes. “Waiting there alone would be unpleasant.” Yuri gets it though, and holds his tongue as he heads to the stables.

The stables are on the west side of the house, the same side as the kitchen. The kennels and gazebo are on the other side. So when they round the corner, neither of them are prepared for the sight in front of them.

Dogs. The kennel dogs in a group, digging into the snow and the frozen earth all together, a synchronized effort. As Yuri registers the red marring the snow, he hears a retching sound behind him. There is a path behind the dogs, tracking to the kitchen door. A bunch of strange long objects lie to the side of them, piled in a way that’s so neat it’s a little bizarre.

Yuri doesn’t even realize that he’d started walking to them until there’s a hand on his elbow, yanking him back. He spins around to give Otabek a piece of his mind, but the mercenary’s face stops him. Otabek’s gone white as a ghost, like he had just died a little inside. “No,” he whispers, voice shot with stark horror.

 _No what?_ Yuri nearly snaps, but then there is a barking, a mass of brown fur pawing at him. He looks down at an unfamiliar poodle, one that looks like Vic. _Oh,_ he realizes, _it’s Victor’s dog._ Makkachin paws at him more, forcing him and Otabek to go back, herding them away from the scene.

At some point, there’s a scream through the air, something that sounds like Victor’s voice and Papa’s name. At some point, the reins slip from Yuri’s grasp, and the horses give him a reproving look before heading off to the stable themselves. (At some point, a dog peels off from the group to help the horses enter.)

At some point, it clicks — Otabek’s expression, the bloody mess they had just witnessed. The objects had been limbs and torsos and heads; whole bodies torn to pieces by canine teeth for easier burial. He whirls around to Otabek and his pallor face. “Are those-” the words that come out of his throat are strangled with wires of denial.

“They are,” Otabek’s eyes are on the ground, looking anywhere but the human remains. “That’s what happened to the people that attacked your so-called-father.”

Part of Yuri wants to choke on revulsion, deny that Papa could ever do anything to someone like that.

Papa is gentle, nurturing. He taught Yuri his letters, how to read and write and cook and clean. He welcomes everyone to his home and lets every damn stranger that stays longer than three days leave with a piece of his heart.

But- Papa also taught Yuri how to use the rapier to kill, how to dance in a room that was half dance studio and half armory. Papa has lived for a very long time, and how many times has he told Yuri to not go downstairs, or to stay in for the day?

 _Papa needs to be protected._ For the longest time, Yuri had looked at his father’s immortal existence as something to detest, almost pity, because the way that Papa is detached and pushes people away. But now, in the face of his father’s self-defense, the remains of Otabek’s companions, he is forced to swallow the bitter truth.

“I want to protect Papa,” Yuri says, “From travellers like you.”

Otabek stiffens, and his hand drops to where a sword was once sheathed. “My companions and I wanted to live well,” he replies quietly. _Wanted,_ past tense.

Yuri looks up at him, feeling calm settle around him like a second cloak. “I’m sorry for their loss,” he grinds out. “But you hurt Papa badly, so-” he bites off the words and heads back to the front of the house, mind racing through the images of the bodies. The man that had cared for Yuri this whole time was also capable of murder. He’d known that. The dogs that Yuri had grown up playing with and getting food with were capable of things like tearing men apart and disposing of bodies. He hadn’t known that.

The facts are there, but Yuri wars against letting them click. His father had never truly been in physical danger from the mercenaries. Papa has been around for hundreds of years before he met Yuri. Papa is expecting Yuri to leave someday.

He chokes a sob down. _Why, then?_ He can’t help but question. _Why did I think he needs me?_

_After all, he’s pushing me away too. Like the rest._

Even though Yuuri had raised him and calls him his son, his father never really told him everything, did he?

“... Hey, Otabek,” he tries to keep his voice level, pulling his leopardskin (the gift from Papa five years ago) and Victor’s coat (a careless gesture that showed the care the traveller has) tighter, trying to stave off a chill from within rather than the one from the winter air. “Can you... tell me about your companions?”

“Why?”

Yurio forces a smile. “Well, why not?” He walks past the front door, towards the gazebo which he knows will be better to talk in.

Otabek stares at him for a moment, gaze still solemn with sorrow. He casts a look to the side of the mansion where the corpses are being buried, and forces his own smile. “The one I was closest to was Denis,” he begins.

* * *

Yuuri feels the cleansing magic wash over the house the same time he washes his face of blood and a layer of dead skin. He hesitates briefly before entering the shower, as it’s cold and the heating stones may take awhile to work sometimes after the house has been cleansed. He can’t greet his son while looking like he’d just resurrected, though, so he strips out of his wrecked clothes and discards them to the side, noting to burn them later.

He steps into the washbasin and presses a stone to start the flow of water raining on top of him, another to heat it up. He closes his eyes under the water, enjoying the sensation of drops running through his hair and down his skin. Just opens up a void in himself to fill everything else with the feeling and the sound of water falling from the ceiling, pouring through his hair and in rivulets down his skin, the noise bouncing around the stone walls.

Yuuri times his breath with the fall of the water, losing himself to it. He stares at nothing in particular other than the bottom of the washbasin as he mechanically reaches for the hair-soap, using a cloth to wash off the evidence of his death and rebirth. Sometimes, his arm twinges, and Yuuri realizes that he’d been holding it in a position for too long, not remembering when he had picked up the washcloth or why, when he still had hair-soap dripping down his neck.

He rubs where his wounds were closed until the skin there is red, as if he could wipe away evidence that he had indeed died and come alive, wipe away the events that had led to him bleeding out. Bile rises in his throat for a moment, and Yuuri gags a little, opening his mouth and letting water fall on his tongue so he could rinse out the taste, spit the feeling out entirely.

 _Is Yurochka safe?_ He abruptly wants to ask Victor at that moment, but Victor isn’t here. Unthinkingly, he smashes a stone to cut off the flow of water falling on him, stepping out of the washbasin. He barely has the presence of mind to grab a dry towel on the side, rubbing water from his face so he can see. “Victor-”

He calls the name, but regrets it not a moment later at the sound of his voice echoing around his empty room.

It’s not really empty, he knows. He’s long filled it with things so that the space of it wasn’t so achingly obvious. But it’s devoid of life, still and quiet under the silvery white light that winter nights bring. He steps into his bedroom himself, uncaring of the chill, and _looks_. He wants to call for Victor again, but the two syllables refuse to come out of his throat, lodged in like a stubborn bit of bone trying to choke him.

Even when Yuuri himself is in his own room, it feels empty. He lets his fingertips skim over the glass top of a writing desk, not a single speck of dust coming off. It’s clinically clean, unchanging and transparent — just like Yuuri himself feels.

Yuuri doesn’t register that he’s on the floor until the fibers of a blue rug tickles his eyelids. He’s facedown, breath short, and he feels like dying again.

Something pulls at his hair — oh, it’s just his own hands. He yanks at the black strands, trying to chase the sensation of pain, a starburst of feeling.

God, _everything_ feels empty. Yuuri’s like the glass on the writing desk, still and unchanging, melted sand that’s been frozen in time. People come and go to write their mark on top of the desk in paper, but it all slides away eventually, tossed into a wastebasket like how memories are thrown into oblivion.

Why did he want to call for Victor? He shouldn’t. It’s a bad idea. Victor should go, like everyone else. Go, maybe take his son with him so that Yuri can finally see the world outside of this unchanging estate. Yuuri manages to free a hand from his hair to clench the rug instead, honing in on the roughness against his fingers.

 _Everyone_ should go — they all leave anyway, so why does Yuuri even contemplate asking them to stay, sometimes? Everyone leaves eventually, so Victor and Yuri should go now. The sooner, the better, before he spends more time with them and successfully deludes himself into believing that they all can have a happiness together.

Yuuri reaches for the leg of the writing desk, intent on using it to pull himself upright and tell Victor and Yurochka to leave for good, for forever, to live out their lives in the wide world instead of being chained to him and his estate, but his legs feel paralyzed, knees locked against the carpet.

(Vaguely, he registers a voice calling for him, but it sounds like someone speaking through water, like his ears are clogged with cotton and-)

(Yuuri doesn’t realize that he’d stopped breathing until his vision blacks out and he nearly dies again.)

“Yuuri-” he hears Victor’s voice now that he’s breathing again, even if it’s only in sharp staccato bursts. He hears concern and care and those things are not- they’re impermissible. Yuuri is the master of the house; people aren’t allowed to care — they all end up leaving anyway so _what’s the point-_

What’s the point?

They all leave anyway.

Asking them to stay is prolonging the inevitable, so he should just drive them away now.

Hands reach for him, and Yuuri allows one last moment of weakness, lets himself enjoy contact with another human being for what will probably be the last time for a couple years. “Yuuri,” the way his name is voiced is shot through with urgency as Victor lifts him up again. His face is creased with worry and he is beautiful in the moonlight. Like a bird that Yuuri cannot cage, and must let go.

“Victor,” Yuuri’s voice sounds foreign to himself.

“Are you okay-”

“Let’s end this.”

* * *

“Let’s end this,” Yuuri says, his eyes hard, unmovable granite cliffs. Even though he’s leaning on Victor for support, it suddenly feels like he’s miles away.

Victor feels his breath taken away by those three words, catching on his throat. All he can do is stare at Yuuri, coming to stop. “What are you saying, Yuuri?” he instead asks. “You were on the floor when I came in, are you okay?”

Yuuri withdraws from Victor’s side, spine straightening stiffly, a cold expression like a finely fitted mask coming to rest upon his brow. “You should go,” he repeats, and it’s only out of virtue of many nights pining over Yuuri’s voice that Victor notices the tremor in his voice, an undertone of disquiet. He’s still naked, hair still wet from washing up, and any other situation Victor would have taken the opportunity to relish in his appearance.

It’s a thought that he’s been having recently; if only recent events didn’t hang over their head, everything would be different. Better-different, a sign of him and Yuuri becoming closer. But no, even though he is naked, Yuuri in this moment seems more heavily armed than a knight. “What are you saying?” Victor asks again. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. Now leave.” Yuuri turns away and heads for what Victor assumes is the wardrobe.

Victor hesitates, because there is something wrong here. “Yurio is outside,” he informs, “With the survivor of the men who attacked you. I’ll let them in now.”

It aches to turn his back on Yuuri when he’s like this, but he does to leave the room. However, Yuuri’s words stop him in his tracks. “No need,” Yuuri says, devoid of emotion. “He should leave with you.”

 _Leave_. Yuuri keeps saying that word, but Victor doesn’t understand. “Why would we do that?” he can’t help but snap. “Why do you think I should leave? I literally just- you died in my arms not twenty minutes ago, Yuuri! Your son is worried for you, and the soldier has nowhere to go. He’s clearly remorseful, so I don’t see why-”

“I said to leave!” Yuuri whips around from where he had been buttoning up a shirt, the white cloth making him look like some kind of faded specter, more dead than alive. “All three of you should go,” he continues, shoulder squared. “There’s nothing for you here. You are a traveller and have seen the world. Yurochka is young, as has yet to see it. I care not what happens to the soldier, but the point is that there is no future for the three of you here!” His voice is quiet, but builds in intensity until the last word is practically a command. “So _go_ , Victor!”

Nothing makes sense. Victor falters, his hands clenching and unclenching. In the face of Yuuri’s death, his breakdown, and now his demand to leave, he has no idea what to do.

So he... obeys. “If you say so,” Victor whispers, “If that is what you truly want, Lord Katsuki.” He can’t help but relish in the hurt that momentarily flickers across Yuuri face, going as far as bowing before he exits the room, closing the door quietly behind him.

He takes a deep breath to fortify himself, and heads out to let Yuri and Otabek into the house. There are no longer bloodstains and bits of human flesh everywhere in the front hall, and all damage to the furniture had been repaired as well. There was probably a time component to the cleansing spell, getting rid of the evidence and reverting the state of the house to before chaos broke out.

Victor is painfully away of the way his shoes clack against the wood, the only sound accompanying him. He opens the now-repaired front door, praying for Yuri to have not become a murderer while his back was turned.

Yuri and Otabek are nowhere in sight. He frowns, at this, but spots their footsteps. He walks into the snow, tracing the two sets, praying that what’s at the end will not give him something to regret. The cold of the snow barely affects him even though he only has his shirt and scarf and pants on, as right now it feels like his heart is colder.

When he rounds the corner, it feels like his heart has just been stabbed with a sliver of needle. Yuri and Otabek are sitting (well, Yuri is crouching on his chair) at the gazebo he and Yuuri had first met. Their voices are muffled by the snow around them, but from this distance he can tell that their conversation is amicable. There’s a faint red glow around the gazebo as he walks closer — probably fire magic at work to keep the occupants warm.

Victor remembers his first conversation with Yuuri, the carefully cultivated demeanor Yuuri wore. The distance between them that he could have sworn had faded with time, but came back in full force to shove him out of Yuuri’s presence. He shoves the contemplation to the side though, pastes on a smile and pitches his voice to the pair. “Don’t you two want to come in?” he calls.

Otabek immediately falls silent, looking to Yuri for some kind of cue. Yuri says something before getting off the chair and holding out a hand to the mercenary. Victor waits patiently for them to come closer before speaking again. “Well, I’m glad that Yurio didn’t kill you after all, Otabek,” he says.

For a moment, Otabek’s expression shutters, but Yuri makes to kick Victor in the shins. “Have some tact, old man,” he snaps, “Hey Otabek, come on.”

Somehow, they’ve become... friendly, Victor dares to say. Not that Victor doesn’t approve, but he _wonders._ How easy it was for them to connect, and why Yuuri wants to shut them all out. “Yurio,” Victor starts, “About your father...”

“Papa’s okay, right?” Yuri doesn’t look at Victor. “He’s immortal, after all.”

The answer is so blase that Victor gets a sense of whiplash. He surges forward in the snow, gripping Yuri tightly by the collar. “What do you mean by that?” he hisses. “He’s your father-”

“He was immortal before he was my father!” Yuri snarls, “Let go of me, old man!”

Victor knows now. Something had happened to make Yurio doubt Yuuri in the short twenty minutes he’d left them alone. There would be no help coming from him. “So?” he rebuts, “Yuuri is still your father. What happened to the boy that tried to chase me off as a leopard?”  

Yuri’s mouth twists into a bitter smile. “I realized that Papa doesn’t really need me after all.” Victor’s grip slackens at that, startled by the words, and Yuri shakes himself free. “Let’s go, Otabek.”

They enter the house as Victor stands frozen in the snow, and he can tell that they have gone towards the kitchen. He feels so out of his depth right now, lost.

What _does_ he want? Why is he still here? Yuuri had told him to leave.

Victor doesn’t want to leave. He wants to stay with Yuuri, immortal together. Happy together. A home, some way to end Victor’s eternal wandering. He’s wanted a home to settle down ever since he became immortal, and with Yuuri, he could possibly have that.

He steels himself, and enters the house again. He doesn’t understand why Yuuri wants him to leave, or why Yuri is suddenly distant, but Victor does know that he wants to understand them.

Up the stairs again, to the West Wing. The door swings open at the lightest touch, and he pauses in front of Yuuri’s bedroom. _What do you say to someone who’s pushing you away?_

The only solution Victor can think of is to push back until he _does_ understand.

“Yuuri?” he opens the door, seeking the man, and his heart clenches at the sight of a figure huddled on the bed. There’s no response.

Victor keeps his steps as quiet as possible as he approaches, not knowing what he would say if Yuuri told him to leave yet again. It feels like forever, walking to him. “Yuuri,” he tries again.

The form shifts just the slightest. “I thought I told you to go,” Yuuri whispers, voice cracking.

Somehow, that hurts Victor more than Yuuri’s earlier screaming. “Can I touch you?” Victor asks. He sees the hesitation on Yuuri’s face, but there’s a nod, so Victor sits at the edge of the bed, placing his hand on Yuuri’s wrist. It’s comforting, to feel his pulse underneath his fingertips.

“Why are you still here?” Yuuri asks. “You told me the stories of how you travel the world, seeing new places. New people. Someone like you... isn’t it against your nature to stay in one place for so long? If you’re going to leave, you should leave now.”

Victor traces Yuuri’s vein gently with his thumb as he takes in the lifeless words, the chill in the air around them that is not from Victor’s magic. It’s a mental sort of chill. “Why?”

Yuuri says nothing at first, turning his face so that his mouth is muffled by the blankets. “Why are you still here, Victor?” he instead asks again. “Yurochka is still here because I raised him, but even he will leave eventually too. Him, I understand, but not you.”

 _Yuuri doesn’t understand._ It hits Victor like a sack of bricks. _I thought it was obvious, that I want to stay here with you. I want to have a home with you._ It’s almost like a betrayal, even though he knows logically that Yuuri cannot read his mind — but even then, Victor had thought his actions had been obvious enough to indicate his wish to _stay._

“Listen to me, Yuuri,” Victor demands, gently. “Please, look at me.” He touches Yuuri’s shoulder, and the man follows until his posture is upright, legs to the side. “It’s because I care about you.”

Immediately, Yuuri folds into something defensive. “You-”

Victor surges forth, desperate. A final move, like a soldier’s last stand. He folds Yuuri in his arms, hugging him like a lifeline. _Don’t push me away,_ he begs in his heart. “I care about you,” he repeats. “I care, so I want to stay.” Yuuri’s head fits perfectly under Victor’s chin. If only this hug was less of a plea and more of a sign of affection between them.

If only Yuuri could hug him back.

But now is not the time for wistful thinking. “You’ve only been here for a month!” Yuuri points out.

“I grew to care for you in a month,”’ Victor fires back. He wishes he could say that he loves Yuuri, but now is not the time. Not yet. “I care about you, Yuuri.”

“How much?” Yuuri whispers, his doubt so obvious, “How are you so sure?”

Victor smiles with an edge of mourning to his lips, even though Yuuri cannot see when his head is below his like this. “I know my own heart,” he says. When there’s no reply to that, he repeats himself again. “I care about you.” And again. “I care about you.”

“Why do you care so much?” Yuuri finally gasps, breaking free of silence. Victor can feel him shaking, his hands clenching Victor’s shirt in desperation and disbelief, like Yuuri can’t decide to push him away or pull him closer. Victor makes the choice for him, and backs away. It hurts, to take in the sight of the moonlight shining on Yuuri, tears staining his face and his body language screaming with fear. Fear of what?

Fear of intimacy, Victor knows now. Fear of letting someone get too close. “Do I need a reason to care about you?” he answers, and his fingers go up to start undressing himself. _Fuck it._  

Yuuri gapes through his tears. “What are you doing? I-” he curls in on himself, but his watery eyes are still fixed on Victor. “I’m immortal, Victor! You can’t-! Someday you’ll die, or you’ll want to leave. You’re a traveller, you see the world — you don’t want to be stuck to this mansion with someone that can only chain you down.” He squeezes his eyes shut, and it squeezes Victor’s heart like a vice, that expression. “This isn’t a fairytale which love is the answer! I don’t know if love is enough to free me. God knows I’ve loved before - I love Yuri with all my heart.  But it will _never_ be enough, because I’m chained here! There is no point to you caring about me when nothing can come out of it!”

Victor discards his shirt and scarf to the side before crouching on the bed again, the mattress dipping under his weight. He reaches his hand towards Yuuri, praying that the man doesn’t reject his touch, but Yuuri sobs again, a sharp sound that stabs through Victor’s entire being. He touches Yuuri’s cheek, still, and lets go of a breath he didn’t know he was holding when Yuuri relaxes under his touch. “I don’t care about that,” Victor says. “I never said I wanted to cure you. I just don’t want to leave you.”

“I don’t get it.”

“Besides...did you really love them? Fully? Wholly?” Victor continues.

Yuuri’s head shoots up, and there is fire in his eyes now. “You think that I don’t love Yuri?” he snaps, hand moving up to push Victor away-

“No, you do love him.” Yuuri eases, but his eyes burn with confusion now. “But even him, even all the lovers you’ve had romantically.”

“Of course I did!”

Victor chuckles bitterly. “Don’t take me wrong, Yuuri, but how can you have loved them fully if you kept pushing them away, like how you’re pushing me and Yuri away even now?”

“... what?”

He keeps his hand on Yuuri’s cheek, and places his other on Yuuri’s hand, squeezing it lightly. “You fear that they’ll leave you, or that they’ll die before you, so you think it’s better if they leave and pursue happiness elsewhere, right?” Yuuri nods numbly. “You may think it’s selfless, that it’s out of love that you push them away, but...”  Victor leans forward, lips brushing against Yuuri’s ear to deliver the final blow, “Isn’t that out of your fear instead?”

Yuuri seizes up, and Victor lunges, wrapping his arms around Yuuri and holding him close. “Please, don’t run.” He’s aware of a fresh wave of tears running down his shoulder. Thankfully, Yuuri doesn’t try to break from Victor’s hold - if he were truly uncomfortable, Victor would have let him go.

“Why are you saying this to me?” Yuuri croaks.

“Didn’t you ask me to stay by your side?”

“I... no? When?” Yuuri asks, puzzled. A pause. “Why are you saying this to me when you’re half-naked?”

 _He was half dead at the time,_ Victor remembers morosely. He sighs and releases Yuuri, sitting back. “I wanted to prove something to you.” He closes his eyes. “I’m saying this because I care about you.” _I love you,_ Victor wants to say, but he knows that now is not the time, not when Yuuri looks half-ready to bolt. _Not yet._

“I’ll outlive you,” Yuuri hiccups. “I’ll forever look younger than you. You’ll get tired of me.” The fears, once voiced, lose a bit of their power. He’s kept them bottled up for so long, only expressing them to his journals, never to another person. “Someday you’ll regret caring me. So many left because they realized that loving me is not-” he curls up and clutches his chest, as if the words physically hurt to say, “Loving me is a terrible idea.”

Victor smiles, even though he knows Yuuri isn’t looking. “I live for terrible decisions.” Yuuri laughs at that, the one that comes out when he doesn’t find something funny in the least. But there is a hint of a smile on his lips now.

“You are a terrible man. You come into my house and you rummage through my past and true to learn everything about me, even if you turn things upside down in the process...” but there’s not an iota of disgust in his voice. It’s fond, albeit regretful. “I don’t even know if love is the key to breaking my curse, Victor. What if I love and everything stays the same?”

He picks up Yuuri’s hand, the left one this time, and lifts it to his lips, kissing the ring finger. “Like I said, I don’t intend to try and free you of immortality. I have no idea how.” He reiterates his previous sentiment. “And... everything won’t stay the same, Yuuri,” Victor promises, “because you’ll have me.”

Yuuri doesn’t pull his hand from Victor’s grasp, but his words hurt more than that action would have. “Didn’t you hear me? I’m immortal, Victor-”

He pushes his hurt to the side and kisses Yuuri’s hand again, turning it over and pressing his lips to the palm. “As am I.”

“I’ll outli- what?”  

* * *

“Is this okay?” Otabek asks.

Yuri pauses rummaging through the pantry to level him an exasperated look. “If I didn’t want you here, I would have turned into a leopard and chased you out,” he says with half the usual bite. It’s very late at night, but he doesn’t feel like sleeping, too consumed by recent events to do so. It’s easy to channel his nervous energy into talking with Otabek. Busying himself with scrounging up food for both of them instead of talking to his father.

What would he even say to Papa? “I saw what the dogs did to the intruder,” or, “Why didn’t you tell me?” He doesn’t know what he feels right now, precisely, so he shoves his thoughts related to Papa aside in favour of being decent to someone that’s not Papa for once.

(He should feel guilty for not checking in on Papa right away, even though all the clues point his his father having recently died, but judging by Victor’s lack of presence, it will be okay.)

(At least, he hopes so.)

“Do you want some pirozhki?” Yuri gives up on the pantry and takes out some leftover pirozhki from the cold-box instead.

“Anything is fine.”

Yuri activates the fire in the oven to reheat the food, grabbing cups of water for them both while he waits for it. The water is ice-cold, but he doesn’t care. “What are you going to do now?” _Without your comrades,_ Yuri means. He knows Otabek gets his point, though.

Otabek hesitates. “I don’t know,” he admits. “I originally meant to find service with Lord Leroy when I went to deliver the message, find employment in Cendey maybe. Now, I don’t know.”

“You can stay here for a bit,” Yuri offers without forethought. “We have a lot of guest rooms.” Then he winces, remembering the bodies in the snow. “That is, if you don’t mind the whole...”

“My comrades died here, and I doubt that the man that killed them would be so welcoming as to let me stay.” The sentence weighs on both of them. “The offer is kind though.”

“Still, you should stay.” Yuri says again, snagging a pirozhok to test the temperature. He bites it, but it’s still kind of cold, so he puts it back in. “It’s not like you have anywhere else to go right now, right?” Otabek’s mouth twitches into a frown, and Yuri winces inside, regretting his words. It’s not... he wants to get along with Otabek, but most of his life he’s used to being abrasive. It’s a bit of a learning curve.

Otabek’s gaze turns to the ground. “I don’t,” he admits. The words sound more hollow than they should.

Earlier, before Victor had interrupted, the man had regaled Yuri with fond memories of his now-dead companions. Yuri senses his disquiet at losing them, and is a little at a loss at what to say.

Most of the time, everyone he interacts with are either from running errands or from visitors, and both sets of people are presented with specific attitudes that Yuri has long cultivated. But Otabek is Yuri’s age, and Yuri can’t bring himself to be angry as usual. Not when Otabek had lost all his companions and in that, paid the price for attacking Papa already.

Part of him genuinely wants to know Otabek better, to be honest. Not just because they’re similar in age, but because Yuri suddenly feels a longing to relate to the stories he’s told, of adventure and fighting and travelling. Even Victor’s highly dramatized tales hadn’t made Yuri feel this way. And it’s a little terrifying, because this whole time, Yuri has wanted nothing more than to stay with his Papa forever.

It stings, to know that Papa is right about how Yuri would leave eventually, or want to leave. Instead of feeling hurt about it, that part of his heart only feels empty. “If he doesn’t expect me to stay, why should I?” Yuri mutters.

Otabek’s voice cuts him free from his musings. “What was that?”

Shit, Yuri had talked aloud. “It’s nothing,” he says, and opens the oven to check the pirozhki again. This time, they’re just on this side of too hot, but it’s cold anyway, so he puts on mittens to take the tray out of the oven and tosses a pirozhok over to Otabek, who fumbles when he catches it, but manages to not drop it. “It’s a little hot.”

“Thank you.”

They eat in relative silence, six pirozhki split between them. The taste of fried pork in one of them makes Yuri’s heart stutter and his thoughts race to Papa for a moment, but he stays where he is.

“Is it really okay?” Otabek asks again, once they’ve polished off the pirozhki. Yuri scowls, but Otabek forges on. “I mean, to not go to your father. He was in a bad shape. You had the eyes of a soldier when you first heard the news, but now-”

“It’s none of your business,” Yuri snaps.

At first, Otabek says nothing, simply staring at him impassively. It makes Yuri twitch in annoyance. “I regret not being closer to my comrades,” Otabek says after a minute’s deliberation. “I hope that you don’t regret similarly.”

Yuri can’t help but step back, feeling as if he’s been shot by a hunter trying to poach him in leopard form. “Excuse me?” he sputters.

“... I don’t know why you allow the sight of my comrades’ corpses to affect your relationship with you father,” Otabek explains. “It doesn’t feel right.”

Yuri feels the corner of his lip twitch in dismay. “What’s it to you?” he deflects.

“If I really am to be staying here, I don’t want to be responsible for a family rift.”

 _Oh._ “The thing is-” why does his throat feel dry all of a sudden? “I always thought that I have to protect Papa. He’s lived a long time, and everyone comes and goes, and he’s just always so _sad_. He tries to hide it, for my sake, but I feel useless sometimes. So seeing those bodies,” Yuri looks at the ground, “A lot of bad travellers have come by, and Papa would always tell me that he’d driven them off. How many of them did he kill?”

“You don’t like that he killed them?” Otabek asks.

Yuri shakes his head, frustrated. “No, I just wish he had told me the truth.” The words hurt to say, a wound finally being aired out. He shouldn’t say this to someone that’s still practically a stranger, but who else is there? “I thought Papa trusted me. I always told him that I wouldn’t leave, but he keeps pushing me away, and I just- I _want_ to be there for him. But what’s the point, if he hides things from me and keeps telling me to go?”

“Maybe he’s right,” Yuri continues, each word like a heavy chain being unlooped from his heart. “Maybe I do need to go see the world, like you and the old man have. Maybe I’m just going to leave, like everyone else — but fuck, I don’t want to, Otabek.”

Something wet touches his cheek, and Yuri lifts his hand in alarm.

It’s a tear.

Oh, he’s crying.

“Can you show me where I can sleep?” he feels a surge of gratefulness to Otabek for not pointing it out.

He sniffs wetly, and nods. “Follow me.”

Yuri hesitates outside of his father’s room on the way back to his own, after showing Otabek into the Green Room. Through a sliver of space between the doors, he can see Victor holding onto Papa, and part of him finally falls silent.

It’s a little easier to breathe now, to know that he’s not the only one that truly doesn’t want Papa to be alone anymore.

_(- Not Papa. Papa is what I called him as a child. He’s Yuuri.)_

And even if they aren’t family by blood, they will always share a bond through their names. That feeling is enough to quiet the thrum of his thoughts and let Yuri fall into a dreamless sleep.

* * *

“I don’t believe you.”

“I can prove it.” Victor hangs onto him like he’s his anchor, and Yuuri becomes fully aware that Victor is much less than fully clothed, that his eyes have a plea that Yuuri has never seen before. “I came here because I’ve heard of immortals before, but most of them were lies. Others took their immortality using black magic. But you’re like me — chained to the earth and time, never aging, never dying.”

Disbelief bubbles into laughter from Yuuri’s mouth like champagne popping, but his throat feels dry. “How do I know you’re not lying?”

“Do you think that I would lie to you about this? What reason would I have?” Victor counters, releasing Yuuri’s hand and reaching to grab his arms instead, shaking him. “Look at me, Yuuri - please.”

He does. Victor’s eyes are clear like ice, beseeching, not an ounce of fakery in them. And Yuuri wants to believe so _badly_ , wants to hope. “How long, then?” he whispers.

“Too long. I’ve almost lost count.” Victor relaxes just the slightest, but doesn’t let go. “Makkachin is the nineteenth dog I’ve had. They were all named Makkachin.” He laughs a little, like his heart is bleeding every time he opens his mouth. “At least I was never chained to one place, unlike you. You’re strong.”

“I- I..” Words fail him at the time when Yuuri needs them the most, so he reaches up to take Victor’s hands in his. “Can you die?” he whispers.

“I can’t.” Victor answers. He shakes a hand free from Yuuri’s and holds it open. Somehow, Yuuri isn’t surprised as frost appears, ice-natured water magic coalescing until a cold knife manifests. It looks to be made completely of ice, but Yuuri knows not to doubt the effectiveness of a construct. “Watch me, Yuuri.”

“You don’t need to-!” Yuuri lunges at Victor, his heart in his throat, but he’s not fast enough.

The knife stabs into Victor’s stomach, by his own hand. Yuuri’s hand closes on the hilt a second too late, and he topples into Victor with a desperate cry. “Shit,” Victor curses, so unlike him, “I don’t want to get blood on the bed.”

“ _That’s_ what you’re worried about?” Yuuri asks incredulously. “Victor-”

A hand rests on his shoulder, and Victor gently pushes him back, the knife still in his stomach. Frost crawls over the wound, stopping any blood, and Yuuri can only watch with increasing disbelief as the knife is dispelled and the wound (which had barely caused a flinch, now that he thinks about it) closes rapidly, flesh knitting in front of him, the only evidence that he hadn’t hallucinated the whole thing being a single drop of blood on the sheets between them. “I can cut my neck, if that would be more convincing,” Victor offers after a heartbeat.

Yuuri shakes his head right away, his shoulders shaking with how hard he now clasps Victor’s forearm. “No,” he says, his throat feeling strangely raspy. “I believe you. I- I _want_ to believe you.”

“If you can believe _this_ ,” Victor says, his eyes boring into Yuuri with an unreadable intent, “Is it so hard to believe that I want to stay with you?”

Yuuri searches Victor’s expression, looking for something. What exactly, he doesn’t know. Honesty? No, not that. Not exactly. He finds something else though — a quiet fear that Yuuri himself is far too familiar with from long hours in front of a mirror. “Why?” he asks. _Why do you want to stay? Why do you care about me? Why are you offering me this sort of future?_

Victor smiles. It’s a small, sad smile. “The only reason I’ve travelled all these years is because it was impossible for me to find somewhere to settle down,” he admits, shoulders slumping and one of his hands coming up to cover Yuuri’s. “If I stayed too long, people would realize something is wrong with me, or want to use me. By travelling, I become merely a myth, and people are in awe of me when I show up somewhere I’ve been before, because they’d have heard of me in stories from their grandparents. Like that, no one can hurt me — many have tried, but I’ve always left places behind, so they could never chase me out.”

Yuuri understands where Victor is coming from. They’re opposites in their immortality, it seems, and isn’t that ironic. “I see,” is all he says, because what else can one say to that?

“Yuuri, I’ve always wanted a places to settle down, after all these years. Wandering is... lonely.” The last word is choked out, almost, a bitter truth.

And _oh,_ they’re not so different after all. Everything finally clicks for Yuuri. “I’ve been lonely too,” he murmurs, and he feels Victor start to tug him closer. He doesn’t fight it.

“I care about you, Yuuri, because I can relate to you,” Victor says, leaning his forehead on Yuuri’s shoulder. He’s warm to the touch, which is at odds with the icy powers he’d just displayed, and with startling clarity, Yuuri realizes that he’s warm too. It’s a novel feeling, one that starts from his heart and reaches all the way to his fingertips. “You’re immortal. You’ve lived too long, experienced things other people never have, and may never understand. But I —”

“No,” Yuuri cuts in. “You could never fully understand. We’re different.” Victor tenses, but Yuuri reaches out to wrap an arm around Victor and hold him close, reciprocating the contact. “But... I know what you mean.”

“I _want_ to understand you,” Victor whispers, “I want to have a home with you. Please, don’t chase me away.”

The last five words pierce Yuuri’s heart in a way that he knows. He _knows_ , he knows what Victor means.

He knows what to say, as well.

“I’ve been so lonely too,” Yuuri murmurs, letting his head fall, eyelashes fluttering against Victor’s skin. A few tears leak from his eyes, from some sort of undefinable emotion that feels, strangely enough, like happiness. “You can stay, as long as you want.”

“When you were dying, earlier, you said something,” Victor says suddenly. “You don’t remember, but I do. So I’m returning them to you now, because I- I feel the same.”

Yuuri lets himself loosen in Victor’s arms. “What did I say?”

Victor sits back abruptly, his face startlingly close to Yuuri’s. “Stay close to me,” he utters the words like they’re a  prayer to some higher being. “Don’t go. I’m afraid of losing you.”

A second ticks by, and then a full minute as Yuuri mutely registers the words, the unmistakeable wistfulness in Victor’s eyes, the emotional and physical closeness that is in reach.

To _that_ , he doesn’t know what to say. But sometimes, actions suffice where words cannot. Lanterns flare to life around the room at his will, from fire runes long carved into the walls, magic of the house connected to the master of the house..

In the warm hue of the lanterns, Yuuri leans forward to fit his lips against Victor’s. They’re not a perfect fit, but as Victor makes an eager sound in the back of his throat, Yuuri lets out a contented sigh.

Even if they’re not a perfect fit, they’re willing to make it work.

In this moment, in Victor’s embrace, he is _warm_ , and Yuuri is all too happy to let himself let down his walls and let go of his restraint.

(He doesn’t remember the last time he felt so warm.)

The moon looks down through the window, still, but for once her cold light does not affect either of the immortal men.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is... a lot to say about this chapter, but my soul is weary. *cracks knuckles*
> 
> 1) I'd like to reiterate that this is not a story about true love curing problems. The confrontation between Yuuri and Victor, I hope, makes this clear. The lesson that Yuuri needs to collect from this, the one that I hope is clear, is that if you push people away because you believe they'll leave, they will end up leaving, most likely. If you live life refusing to let people enter because you're afraid that it'll hurt when they leave, it's a terribly lonely existence, because you're always convinced that it's fruitless. It will hurt you and the people that care about you, just as it's hurting Yuuri and Yuri now, just as it hurt Victor. 
> 
> 2) Yuri and Otabek — if you don't like them together in any capacity, you know how to backspace out of the tab. Otabek's role in this story is similar to his one in canon in that he's one of Yuri's few friends. However, he's also here to make Yuri confront another side of reality: that staying with Yuuri forever, as nice as it sounds, is boxing himself in. Seeing the bodies of Otabek's companions is the wake-up call. He's convinced himself that he has a happy existence here, but when faced with the most obvious form of his father pushing him away (hiding the truth from him, which Yuri interprets as distrust) he doesn't know what to think, and latches onto Otabek as someone he can talk to and learn from. 
> 
> For the record, Yuri is eighteen and Otabek is twenty-one *shrugs*. 
> 
> 3) Yuuri, for the longest time, has managed to convince himself that pushing people away was for their sake, not his. He's wrong, as Victor points out. In a way, he's selfish. Yuuri convinces himself that he's doing things for the sake of other people, such as being very protective of Yuri and not telling him the truth, but it ends up driving a wedge between them. His anxiety in canon is similar to imposter syndrome, but to to the nature of how wildly au this story is, it manifests mostly as abandonment issues. 
> 
> 4) Yuuri and Victor's storyline is based off of the song stammi vicino, but Yuri's story is very much about growing up to be an adult (in some meaning of the word).
> 
> 5) I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and that that everything made sense. There's only two official chapters left, and they'll be coming in around June probably, as in May I have finals and also a big bang fic to write. Thank you for your patience.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed. Comments are very appreciated _o_ feel free to ask me things in the comments or on my tumblr/twitter!
> 
> [writing sideblog](http://plotmaster.tumblr.com/)  
> [main tumblr](http://exile-wrath.tumblr.com/)
> 
> [twitter ](https://twitter.com/exile_wrath) I RT a lot of yoi art and occasionally talk about fic progress.
> 
> [ commissioned art by the wonderful kanton of Victor and Yuuri's first meeting in chapter two! ](http://kantonliu.tumblr.com/post/159838207171/commission-for-exile-wrath-for-the-fic-aria/)


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